A look at Blenders current user interface, and how to evolve it into the future. Blenders non-overlapping, multi-window design has won many over, and inspired other applications, such as Apple's Motion and Luxology's Modo. However, over the years several inconsistencies and problems have risen. The upcoming release of Blender 2.5 is a perfect time to make a clean cut, and implement a more modern, flexible, yet easy to use interface, keeping key advantages of the current UI, while improving the lesser elements.
Such a change will increase it’s attractiveness in professional environments, and make it easier to integrate into workflows. This paper and presentation will discuss the challenges ahead, and also provide concrete proposals for solutions going forward. One example is how to make a great unified tools system (for use in modeling, sculpting, painting etc.), and also how to deal with the upcoming everything-is-animatable paradigm. The presentation includes clear visual examples, and billboard printouts for discussion.
Full paper (7 MB pdf, updated week after conference)
An image from the proposal
The meeting was aimed at discussing about future improvements of Blender for architects users and precise modeling in general.
A full report is on Milovann Yanatchkov's website.
I will be a presentation about the workflow between Blender artists, designers and flash-programmers. I will also talk about the advantages of bringing the 3D
Dimension into Webpages/WebApplications.
On November 30th a new website (endlichwinter.com) will be published and offer a complete new approach to maps and data visualization on a website. All this will be possible through the combination of Blender generated files (.dae files and baked textures) and the Papervision 3D engine.
The presentation is aimed to show the trailer and the work in progress of the italian undersea docufiction by director L. Sergiani. Photorealistic digital fishes will interact with human actors and real sea habitants.
This presentation shows the current status of the ODF importer that is developed at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (Germany). ODF is the ISO standard for presentation-slides.
This importer is developed mainly for the work with a learning platform, e.g. simulation. But it also is a very good starting point for modelling and animation, as many people are used to work with presentation programs but not with 3D-applications. Of course, after importing the slides they can be enriched with interaction and all the other Blender features.
The talk outlines the development and the context of the importer's application. Of course, the importer's usage will be presented. Also, the next steps will be discussed as well as some proposals to Blender's development.
Full presentation (pdf)
How we made a cartoon for educational purposes working in a school
using the creativity of children and the professional help of
teachers.
Full paper (pdf)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6trEKABy6o
http://vimeo.com/1159774
The future for 3D creation softwares should include some artificial intelligence functions. None of the great 3D commercial softwares (except Endorphin from Natural Motion) proposes some tools as these described in this paper actually. Blender would be the first 3D creation suite (modeling, texturing, animation, rendering) including some modules based on optimisation techniques, machine learning and solution research, using Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Neural Networks, Self Organizing Map, Bayesian Networks, Fuzzy Logic and Principal Component Analysis.
The talk will give an overview of the work done during the Google Summer of Code 2008. I have been working on implementing the Lightcuts algorithm in Blender.
Outline for the talk:
- explain the theory behind the Lightcuts algorithm
- show how this algorithm has been currently implemented in Blender: what is possible to achieve and what are the current limitations (I expect this part to touch more on the "user" part than on the "programmer" part)
- possible future extensions of this work (they could evolve in possible future GSoC proposals)
Wiki documentation of Lightcuts implementation
Full presentation paper, pdf
Reconstructing the human presence in historical settings has recently become the aim of several scientific co-operations between archaeological and computer science personnel. In particular, computer graphics help researchers to reconstruct original locations starting from a simple plan.
The last few years were very important for Blender, with the introduction of brand newand impressive features and, consequently, an increased professional usability.One of the most evident (and good...) characteristic of Blender are its differences fromany other similar tool. This can easily become a significant problem in teachingBlender as key of a course if students already have experience of other (oftencommercial) tools, used in schools.The Industrial Design courses of Politecnico di Torino introduced Blender in didacticsthree years ago, replacing all other 3D tools. The first problem we faced was to identifynew ways to introduce Blender to students to overcome the aforementioned problem.
This presentation shows how Blender is used as a content production tool to help historians convey the atmosphere and changes over time in a small Finnish village, Toivola. During the project ten worlds spanning into the history of the village during 600 years will be produced. The viewer can examine the village from bird's eye view or alternatively she can examine individual courtyards and buildings. The world engine developed for the project is based on OpenSceneGraph.
So far content production has focused on the modern 1950s world. Based ongathered reference material, initial 3D models have been produced using Blender. Current production process will be covered in the presentation covering reference gathering, sketching and modeling. Also analysis of the process and especially workflow in Blender will be provided.
The project started at 2007 and is planned to be ready by 2011. It is done as a joint venture between Department of History and Ethnology and Virtual Reality Laboratory of University of Jyväskylä.
Full paper and presentation (7 MB tar bz2)
Analyzing the pipeline and workflow for VFX production, and how Blender can better assist artists in this area.
(paper to be provided still)
The inside of a cell is nanoworld in which life happens at tiny scale and high speed: hundreds of protein characters (minute as ants or large as elephants) play their roles in several different and fascinating environments, as varied as forest and desert, ocean and metropolis. Biologists have revealed the events of inner life using experimental quantitative and qualitative techniques and describe them in (difficult) scientific reports. We want to bring the beauty of biology to everyone's reach, using Blender in a rigorous but at the same time creative way.
We have produced scripts to import crystallographic and NMR information from scientific databases, and are in the process of developing algorithms to obtain animations from still (3D)images. We also intend to use creative renderings in order to convey information about the physical and chemical properties of the subcellular environments and of the surface of each component in the cell.
Our work has the primary aim of enabling scientists to observe directly the objects of their study, by showing the kinetics and conformational changes as animations, but it can be of great value for teaching, for the spread of scientific knowledge and thinking, and provide artists with inspiration as representation of life, well beyond the DNA spiral.
We present a case study of how the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia in Canada uses Blender for scientific data visualization. Being part of this 2 year research project from almost the beginning, we (Dalai and I) see the project develop from the design phase into an almost finished product.
One of the main challenges that many research organizations faces today is to present their data and findings in an intuitive manner. The Fisheries Centre of UBC developed a software called EcoPath that is responsible for providing accurate simulation of marine ecosystems. The output data is then passed to a 3D visualization application for realtime display and interaction, Blender/BGE is the chosen visualization system.
Our main talk is about how the ocean visualization is done within Blender; how we reduce thousands of rows of numerical data from the server into a single visualization; some of the problems we faced and some specific workaround we are using. Notably, we would like to highlight how we are using GLSL shaders to animate the fishes with performance that is 10x faster than using Blender armatures. Also it would be interesting to show how our AI system works, handling hundreds of fish, with flocking behavior and basic interactions among them.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time Blender is used as a main research tool in the academia arena.
vimeo.com/2158835 (project itself)
vimeo.com/1492070 (demo navigation system)
vimeo.com/1368369 (demo crrabs following the terrain)
Support material: blender files (2 MB)
Support material: Full paper
See3D have been producing animations for business and academia since 2006 and recently spun out from Aberystwyth University to become a limited company. We successfully use Blender as our main workhorse and have built our own 250 node render farm. In addition to showing some of our most recent work, we would like to present our proposals for making our dedicated render farm the best available to Blender users. We would also like to discuss other supporting services we could offer.
Hidden Histores project (pdf) Full Paper (pdf)
The development of sophisticated and "open source" 3D modelling software as Blender is increasingly favouring the possibilities for creative expression and artistic and multimedia communication.
Blender is a crucial point for both its chances of direct expression and expansion of artistic creativity and as a vehicle for entering to other dimensions: in collaborative 3D virtual worlds as Second Life or Project Wonderland or in physical simulations as video games or movies.
The feature that makes it so interesting is to cover utilities for different worlds such as art, architecture and the production of videos and video games.
The goal of my speech is to highlight the links between virtual life and real life in the design process: an interchange between worlds which open the path for new interpretations of sculpture and architecture and new professional figures.
We are facing to a wonderful expansion of the artistic creativity; we can design everything in a virtual world and then we can try to use it for the constructing process in Real Life. Today an artist can really invent its own world.
Full Paper (pdf)