A Second Chance.( A Jedi Apprentice fanfic)

As a follow up to that, since they are all high-poly meshes they do take some time to render. For those of you with access to LANs there is a program which allows you to set up a Render farm on any TCP/IP network (incl. the internet) called Blender Operations Balancer. It can be downloaded at the following address:
http://www.photopro.co.uk/blender/BOB/ http://www.photopro.co.uk/blender/BOB/

It works wonderfully, jsut be sure to read the documentation when setting it up.

I'm working on finding out how to lower the poly count on blender models. I'll keep you posted.
-Lokmer

 

I just downloaded blender and axogon...and bookmarked the links you provided...thanks Lokmer.

 

Lokmer, how do you find Blender to use? Is it quite difficult to learn? I downloaded it once about a year ago, but it seemed, and the html manual didn't really explain it that well. I've seen some nice artwork done with it though. I use Hash Animation Master myself, which is spline based, so none of the polygon based Star Wars models out there would really work with it.

Now seeing this site you've mentioned with all the Blender SW models, I'm curious. Of course, if I started using it, it would only be for animating these SW models, as I'm quite happy with Hash. Would there be a lot involved in setting up a space scene, texturing and animating these models?

I guess one of the best things Blender has going for it, is that it's available for all the major operating systems, BeOs included.

 

How've I found it to use? Well, that's an interesting question. My first week I about gave up on it, because the interface is unlike anything else I've ever used. It's not a standard windows-type interface, and I initially found that frustrating. So, I worked my way through a few tutorials (four or five) - I have yet to buy the manual, but I plan on doing it when I get an extra $40. All of a sudden, about two weeks into monkeying around with it, it made sense. The interface is efficient (much more efficient than some of it's competitors), rather than intuitive. Everything is done with hotkeys, though there are popup menus you can use. I still don't know everything about it by a long shot, but it's a really convienient program. Powerful, quick, and easy (once you get used to it). I'd recommend working through some tutorials on Blendermania ( http://www.blendermania.com http://www.blendermania.com ) and also some of the ones off the blender home page (under the blenderstuff menu). Also, the online FAQ and manual are extremely helpful. As for texturing and animating some of those ships, texturing and animating of that sort is one of the easiest things in the world to do. Creating a space environment takes a few seconds (I go over how to do this in my Opening Crawl tutorial on TFN), creating planets takes a little longer, but it isn't difficult (it just takes multiple textures to make it look right, but the tut over at Blendermania makes this a snap). Creating a sun (or a pair of suns) is easy also, just a matter of assigning a halo material to a sphere mesh. I'll be happy to help you out with anything I can in it. It's a great program!
I hope this answers your question, if it doesn't I'll try again.

OBTW, the BOB only works with windows (unfortunately), but the programmer has made available the source code if you want to recompile it for BeOS yourself. Additionally , there's talk of it being incorporated into the Blender program (all platforms) sometime in the not-too-distant future (read six to eight months).
Have a good one. email me if you need any help! lokmer@bigfoot.com
-Lokmer

 

As I side note I am also a user of Hash Animation:Master and I am in the process of writing a slew of tutorials on creating various SW FX in A:M, as well as FX from other science-fiction, here is what I am planning/working on:

-lightsabres
-weapons fire (tie bomber boms, lasers, naboo figheter proton torpedos, x-wing proton torpedos, ion cannon blasts, death star lasers, etc.)
-engine glows (rebel figheter, tie figheter, falon, captial ship, naboo ships, etc.)
planetary destruction ala deathstar
-hyperspace effects (lightspeed starlines, hyperspace tunnel, making a ship jump into and drop out of hyperspace from an external viewpoint)
-explosions using animated displacement maps
-holographic effects
-creating five types of plantes (earth-like, gas giant, desert-like, hoth-like, and coruscant-like)
-Perfect Opening Text Crawl (there's more to it than making some 3D text fly around)

[This message has been edited by JediToren (edited 05-13-2000).]

 

Do I detect a slight?!?!?! heheehe.
What in particular are you thinking of (I'd love to know, I'd love to make my tutorial better!).
-Lokmer

 

ok. Im confused. What is Blender? Does it help you make special effects? And whenever I download a SW file, it always unzips to a quicktime file. Whats wrong?

 

Blender is a freeware 3D software suite. I helps with special FX like: Digital Characters (Jar-Jar), space battles, digital environments (Coruscant), and stuff like that.

What SW files are you downloading that are unzipping to QT format. We need to know what exactly you're doing if we're going to help you.
-Lokmer

 

Well, the first thing I downloaded was "lightsaber" and then when i clicked on it, it asked me what i wanted to open it with. I didnt have a clue what to open it with so I tried opening it with Quicktime, and it didnt work. So I tried downloading some other files and now they all unzip to Quicktime. HELP!!!

 

Open up blender, hit the space bar so that the main menu will show up. Then go to file/ load file as. Find the file you want to open up, after that hit enter and the file should load.

 

Ok. I downloaded Blender. Now what file do I open to actually get into it? When I click on "BNDaemon", it just installs it. And everytime I click it, it keeps installing.

 

Download Blender. Unzip it, open the folder its in. Click on the Blender icon. It will open a window in DOS, then it goes to the program. Click F1 find the location of the lightsaber blender file, open it.

 

BNDeamon is the Blender Operations Balancer, not Blender itself. Blender (the current release is 1.75) is a zip file and requires no install program.

To reassociate the .blend file type with blender, open windows explorer and find a .blend file. Hold down shift then right click on a .blend file, and chose Open With..., then pick Blender from the list of programs, and check the "Always use this program to open this file type" box, and hit OK.

Got it?
-Lokmer

 

Ok this isnt helping. I found a file called "Blend", but when I click on it, it takes me to Adobe After Effects. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE BLENDER FILE?

 

Ok, here we go. The name of the blender program is Blender.exe and is (most likely) in the directory C:\blender . Blender saved files are saved as *.blend or *.blend1, so if you have a Star Destroyer and it's called ISD (I don't know if this is actually what it's called, this is just for the sake of argument), the full file name will be isd.blend, and you will find it in the zipped file you downloaded from the site listed earlier in this thread.

Now, you can avoid all of this frustration by simply loading it up after you've opened up blender. to do this, follow the following steps: 1) unzip the downloaded zipped mesh file to the directory C:\blender 2) Run Blender 3) hit F1 4) find C:\Blender 5) click once on the blender file you want to open 6) hit Enter.

Does this help? If not, tell me again exactly (in annoyingly anal detail) what's happening so I can help you fix it.
-Lokmer

 

bump

 

Okay, I want to blendermania.com, I selected "download blender" The problem is, it gave me like.. a million choices! What one do I download ? All of them ? I just want to get the stinkin' program, not all of the tutorials (yet).

 

Download the latest version of Blender (1.75 I think) for your OS (I'll assume it's Windows). The reason all of those are up there is two fold. 1) When bugs crop up, it takes a while to get patches so sometimes it's more convenient to revert to the previous version until the bugs are fixed, and 2) Blender is ported for around 8 different Operating Systems (BeOS, Windows98, Windows NT/2000, Linux, Unix, Sun, Redhat Linux, and coming soom for Mac OS X).

So, if you're looking for Blender for Windows, download v. 1.75 for Windows 98. That help?

-Lokmer

 

Ok, Lok, here's the part I get stuck at...

I have an existing scene. Then I downloaded the A-Wing .blend and wanted to incorporate it. So I Shift-F1'ed and went to the .blend file. Upon clicking on that, it gave me a selection of all the different parts making up that scene (objects, materials, etc.). Is there is a way to pull the all the A-Wing meshes into the scene as one piece, instead of having to piece it back together, since it is in pieces?

-Brian P. Gefrich
rabidjester@tomgreen.com

 

Ohhh....sorry, I was misunderstanding...I was envisioning the .dxf load process (most .dxfs come in one piece, so it don't matter).

Well, I just went into blender to monkey around a bit. I'm also placing a question on Blender News Server (where the program's developers hang out) to see if there's a way to load multiple parts at once.

Until then, here's a really simple way to do it. Load the objects only, and don't move the 3D cursor at all until all objects are loaded. This should only take 30-40 seconds if you're quick on the keyboard, but as long as your 3d cursor (that's the little cross-hair thingy) remains unmoved, all the pieces will appear in their proper place relative to each-other. Then, do your texture mapping, and when it's done, you can do things one of two ways.

1) If your ship is not going to explode: hit B and draw a box around the whole ship. Now hit CRTL-J. This should join all the objects while retaining the textures. You may now move the ship as a single mesh.

2) If the ship is going to explode: Keep things like they are, moving the ship by drawing the box around it (B) and moving all the parts at once. Then, when it blows up, you can add a keyframe and blow the pieces apart in every direction.

I'll get back to you with news from the Blender server as it becomes available (1-3 days).

I am working on an update of the Blender opening Crawl tutorial, and a new Axogon opening Crawl tutorial, which I will be sending to TFN this week.

-Lokmer

 

Okay, got the answer. If you import all the objects they keep their links to textures, meshes, ipos, et. al.. Here's how you import all the objects at once:
Shift F1 , select the file to import, and then go into the category (Objects), and right drag down the entire list. It will highlight blue. The press the center button or Enter to import.

Hope this helps!
-Lokmer

 

Thanks for the help Lokmer, but now I have a new problem, and I'm sure I'm going to sound stupid for asking this. My computer didn't unzip the file automatically. Is there any other way I can unzip it? I've already tried going through windows explorer but it does nothing.

 

<<Lokmer shrinks to become a silly-looking green gnome, destroying all gramatical correctness in the process>>

Winzip you need, Then archives may you open. Extract the files you can when this is done. A useful program this is, and find it here you can: http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/JustIn/Items/0,118,312,00.html http://coverage.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/JustIn/Items/0,118,312,00.html
Download the trial version you must.

<<Lokmer suddenly expands to his normal 5'11'' and rubs his neck vigourously>>>
Man, that stunt is hard on the back. Hope that helped
-Lokmer

 

Thanks Lok, that is much, much easier.

-Brian P. Gefrich

 

Thanks again !