Cosmos VFX Clips - FREE Giveaway Video!

And as promised, here's the video, explaining about the free download what you get, and what you can do with the clips! Keep in mind, there are 11 image sequences, each 144 frames long, so the whole file is just over 1 GB in filesize.

I didn't mention how the nodes are composited together in blender, but hopefully the example .blend files shows that. However, if it's still not clear, feel free to ask me in a comment for more clarification!

Happy New Year!

New Section: FREE STUFF! - Final Day of 2014 Giveaway!

I know that no one can resist the allure of free stuff, so I thought I'd start a section for anyone to come by and grab some of these tasty offerings.

I'm starting off by giving everyone a chance to download the render passes from my composite entitled "Cosmos VFX". Explainer video coming soon!

In the meantime, check out the original video here.

Midas Touch - Turning Objects Into Gold

Here's something I created entirely in After Effects. I used some CC filters and colour grading mostly. I know it's not Blender, but there really are some great things in After Effects.

Cosmos VFX: A Blender Odyssey (Recreating a Space Shot)

Hey gang,

I've just spent the last few days working on tweaking this visual effects shot I created. Initially inspired by an fxguidetv episode that covered the making of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey", I eventually wanted to create my own rendition that depicts the surface of the sun.

Most of the elements were created in blender. I used Cycles to render the spaceship interior, and then rendered out a noise texture mapped to a plane for the sunspots and warping texture. I also rendered out black and white versions of the solar flares as smoke simulations.

In Nuke, I took all the elements, tweaked their colors, added film grain, lens effects and some subtle camera shake and voila! Here's the result:

Let me know what you think!

The Spiritual Pilgrim - 3D Render

Today, I wanted to try something cool. I took a 16th century woodcut illustration of an alchemist, and used the black and white image as a displacement map on a subdivided plane.

Here's the original image:

And here's the new displaced image in 3D using Cycles' gold texture and an HDRI reflection map.

Ruby Talisman Final!

Alright. Here's the last version, ready for sale! I modified the pattern on the surface of the metal to make it more appealing to customers. Also tweaked the geometry and applied the modifiers. Finally, I ran it through the compositor for some small glare additions. The modelling is really simple. Most of the time was spent tweaking the shaders and creating the normal maps in photoshop.

I've included a wireframe below the final image:

Ruby Talisman version 2 (Now With Chain)

I probably should have used the chain add-on that comes with blender, but ah well. Used a curve deform modifier instead.

Ruby Talisman First Render

This is the latest project I'm working on. Creating a red shamanic talisman that people can hopefully use. Also testing out materials and normal mapping in cycles.

And here's the normal map that I'm using to render the metal decorations: