I am a University Head of Department from the UK but best know in the Blender community as Cog or Cogfilms. Over the last 4 years I have been involved in the creation of an animated feature called Cog. I have a webpage called www.cogfilms.com where I detail progress on this long project and also offer several tutorials on Blender that have been well received by the community. I am the author of the BSoD 2006 Materials and Textures in Blender.
3D materials and textures have always offered challenges to the budding artist. Blender provides a very comprehensive set of tools that make the process of producing the impossible achievable. The emphasis will be on the Blender material, and composite nodes system, introduced in Blender v2.42. Examples of a nuclear explosion and a boat wake with bow wave, on an ocean, will be shown. All of the techniques will demonstrate the simplicity of nodes when used sensibly.
Therefore, during the presentation students will gain knowledge on:-
* simplifying node application
* approaches to identifying what nodes to use where
* the node tree principles
* hidden node attributes
* using nodes sensibly
* going crazy with nodes
o Stereo images automatically
o Mixed FX in a single render
o Unexpected graphic FX generation with nodes.
The student will be introduced to a series of flash cards to help understand there capabilities. Through a simple exercise some members of the audience will be able to take home with them a set of node flash cards for later use. Also a full set of the cards will be available in printable form from the Blenderwiki during the conference.
Interestingly prior to my proposal for this workshop I had only scratched the surface of Blender nodes so I hope I will demonstrate the ease of utilizing new Blender features very quickly to achieve the impossible. One of Blenders greatest characteristics is its ability to realize difficult graphic FX without the need to be a master of every tool. However, producing the impossible makes learning fun, furious but never frustrating.