Updated Rotating Brain Animation

Hey guys,

I realized that for some reason, of all my videos on Youtube, my brain animation turntable has been doing better than all of them based on views. About twice as many as the next closest, to be exact.

It's gotten approximately 976 views, whereas my next most popular video ("Realistic Slow Fire") has only received 455 views. It's probably just because it's in the Science & Technology category.

Therefore, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to upgrade the video. The issue? I realized it was only 10 seconds long, at 360p resolution (tiny) and at low quality. Funnily enough, I had used a social rendering service called Renderweb to render out HD frames of the brain turntable 2 years ago, but had never actually uploaded them. Why? I don't know.

So here in it's glory is the new turntable render at a whopping 45 seconds! In order to make it more interested, I also added annotations to give it some context and facts about the brain.

New book cover image!

Been meaning to do this for a while - finally finished! For a young adult novel set in the Middle Ages. Enjoy...

Blog Design Update

Like the title says - I decided it was time for a major overhaul of the design. What do you guys think?

New Artwork - Water Chimes

Yah! Finally another truly blender related post. Here's my latest work, entitled "Water Chimes":

Based off of a film photograph I took 6 or so years ago in college, I really liked the mood the photograph captured, but was disappointed with the resolution and graininess...

So I recreated it in 3D! Here's the original for your interest:

Final PyroTouch Fireworks Game Demo Video

Alright - for those of you interested, here's the final video - this time right up close to the action - at English Bay!

Craziness was unbounded ;) Enjoy:

Second PyroTouch video - at Spanish Banks!

Here's the 2nd in our 3 part series on our fireworks coverage shortly before the performance at 10pm.

New Pyrotouch video!

This is non-blender again (sorry) but I thought I'd post this, mostly because a fair bit of work was involved, as well as people. We couldn't have done it without you!

This is the promo for the game Pyrotouch that we filmed on Saturday July 28th. Lots of great reactions from people! I co-ordinated the event, and helped edit it with my trusty D.P and editor Berni.

"Tibetan Bowl" - Latest Render (for Print)

This took quite a while to render. I did it in quarters, because the ultimate goal is to have it large enough to print, and my dual-core can't handle 4 or 6k images! So it's all rendered in cycles, about 400 passes per section.

Lots of post-work in photoshop. Looks great printed out - just a bit dark (might need some tweaking).

Enjoy!

Pyrotouch iPhone Game - Fireworks!

Hey everyone,

I don't normally post a non-blender posting, but I just thought I'd share an app I've been working on the for the past several months with some friends of mine. It's called PyroTouch, and it's a free fireworks performance game! Unlike those other games, this one has a time limit and several different touch actions to activate (e.g. swipe, tap, double-tap) the targets.

Check it out! Each performance level is a different city, so we start in Vancouver, but eventually will move to all around the world.

I designed all the fireworks, and I wish I could say I did them in blender, but it just wasn't possible :)

Here's the gameplay trailer:

And if you like fireworks, definitely check out Blender Diploma's great tutorial on using particles with Blender 2.63.

"Solaris" Image Mini Shader Setup Tutorial

FINAL IMAGE: 

This is all blender internal, as I created it about two summers ago and therefore did not have access to any cycles magic. However, the advantage of this approach was the use of volumetric materials.

For reference, I used this NASA image (which blender user "Johal" astutely observed was taken through a "h-alpha" filter):

As you can see, there are lots of elements going on to create this turbulent sun.

1) I started out by creating a box (big surprise), and using it as a domain for the volumetric material. I then set it to point-density, and instead of the usual particle method (for example, creating clouds), I used an object to take the point density from; in this case, a sphere. I then broke up the regularity of the surface by using various turbulent noise settings.

Here's an image of just the newly created sphere and point density:

2) Then, I used a series of smaller noise settings, broken up by larger noise settings to create areas such as "bright spots" and "dark spot" for the flares and gas eruptions.

3) Finally, all the magic came together in compositing. Here, I used tons and tons of contrast and saturation nodes to bump up the colors and tones for the extremes that you find in the NASA "photograph." Nothing too fancy, just several color and blending mix nodes to create the final image.

And voila! So there you go. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

BONUS:
Here is a collage showing a mere few of my previous attempts to render the sun. As you can tell, it took quite a few tries ;) (I think over 25, to be exact).

 

New Image! "Sugar bowl & citrine gem"

Created with Blender 2.62 & Rendered with cycles. Gave me a nice opportunity to get a real clay shader texture, as well as sort out lighting and scene composition. Enjoy!

Flaming Sword (Huzzah!)

Also created this as a concept piece to track fire to a swinging sword (possibly belonging to an invisible swordsman. Used After Effects for the 3D wall texture and a few layers. Also did the motion blur of the fire in post.

Blood Cells Flowing

Here's a recent medical visualization (stylized) I created for a prospective client using Blender Particles and After Effects. I really wanted to create that microscopic shader feel:

A new post finally! Liquid Counter (VFX)

It's been a while, I know. Here's a new test I did with the excellent new wave modifier that comes with Blender 2.61: