I spent roughly 11 hours in total on what would be my entry to the Blender Guru Christmas contest. Only I realized this afternoon that the deadline was last night ;) so I’m a day late and a buck short.
Anyway, I find time-lapses to be of great benifit, so I decided to record my whole process of making my entry:
nice love it really helps with understanding cycles and work flow
Very nice modeling.
Btw what's the first song? untill the minute 6.
Man that's great modeling. I am amazed at the level of detail... I mean.. you even modeled the filaments of the little lightbulbs in the tree!
As a newbie, there are a thousand questions I could ask, but please if you have a minute, maybe you can tell me in few words how to model the tinsel, and also how to shape it in that complicated form. Thanks!
It's much simpler than you think! It's just a curve with a particle system on it :) Read my reply to Reshef's comment if you want to know more about doing this particularly in cycles
Thanks man!
And yes, there is interest for a tutorial! :-)
Greg, nice tips!
Can cycles render particles? I'm confused, I tried making a Christmas tree in Blender, but, remembering that cycles can't render particles, i resorted to the blender internal renderer. Are you just using a mesh "stick" ?
No, cycles can't render particles :) however, I wasn't rendering particles. Not exactly anyways.
I was using particle instances. Basically it just duplicates the object (in my case a simple stretched plane to be the pine needle) and puts one object on each particle.
All you got to do is add a particle instance modifier to the object you want duplicated (in my case the needle) and set it to use the particle system of another object.
If there's interest I could make a tutorial sometime on this.
it seems like you are using some kind of stretched out plane. I'll play around with it, I'll see how it works.
Excuse me, gentlemen, but Cycles can render particles! Just now I worked on a scene which includes a glass of champagne, complete with particle bubbles. I rendered it in cycles and it's perfect!
Try 2.61! :)
Interesting timelapse. Although I'm a bit confused on how the render relates to christmas.
I guess I'm the slow type. How in the world does anyone get any understanding out of these time lapse thingy'ies?
It would be ok if you had a slower speed option, but my brain bleeds trying to watch this stuff.
Thanks a lot though..
Time lapses are for those who already know how to use blender. I found that after a few months of learning blender, I could no longer get much out of watching tutorials - half the video is spent showing you which buttons to push.
If you already know which buttons to push, all you need to know is how to do something - the workflow and method - hence I find time lapses to be pretty valuable.
Besides, recording is a great motivator for me to work and stop being so lazy ;)
Great work like this makes me want to just give up. Cycles is the newest release is sort of annoying due to them removing some textures for bump mapping in the materials nodes and such
Never give up! All great things take time.
Also, Cycles is being developed by one single person. It's not that "they" removed anything, Brecht simply hasn't had time to add it yet. It's a whole new system, nothing is compatible.
I think Brecht deserves a little less nagging from the community and a little more respect :)
Cycles is still under development. A little patience please! I am a programmer myself and believe me when I say that intricate systems like Cycles take an awful lot of blood, sweat, tears and pulling your hair out. As it stands, it's a masterpiece already and it will get even better!
I greatly admire Brecht and Thomas for taking on such an epic project!
Hi Greg
Sorry you missed the deadline. I'd submit it anyway. Andrew may give you a mention for your skills.
I love the scene. It's a simple, no frills picture. And it looks real. That's the key.
Great movie, very nicely rendered scene.
Greg Zaal - Blender guru ))))))))
Greg, so if i pause the time lapse will i be able to figure out how to do the compositing side of the scene. This is the main thing i want to work on is compositing because i know i can model all these items but compositing is the one thing i am still trying to master.
this should help :) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23382946/christmas%20nodes.jpg
I rendered some stuff in blender internal too, sort of a faked alpha pass that I used as a mask for the stars
You definitely should do a tutorial on how to get tinsel like that! I always like your tutorials. Loved the tree too!
These time lapses always get me inspired.
Did you use double sided materials on the planes for the tree and tinsel "leaves"?
Nah, since it's not an animation you will only see each leaf from one side - thus it would be pointless to make double sided materials :P
All I did was separate the leaves into 5 groups and assign a different leaf texture to each of them, some of the textures were of the back of a leaf, and some were of the front.
I totally did the same thing. (missed the deadline, not time lapse) apparently GMT and EST aren't the same. oops!
Sorry to be the music anorak, but what is the name of that songs you were playing throughout (particularly 6:25 song), it had me mesmerised (along with the modelling of course).
Wish you and your Family Happy and prosperous New Year, Great work done. We request tutorial on this Particulaly the small christmas tree on table, a nice work.
Thanks.
Jesus Christ please tell us the name ot that songs.