Linux for Designers

More then a year ago i wrote a post about the project CGSphere. Today i visited the website again and it is still amazing: During all the time new spheres where submitted every week. Now a huge collection of spheres are available. You can browse them by 3D software, month/ year, category and rating. Take a look its awesome!

Blender 2.46 RC5 is available now!
Blender 2.46 final will available on May 17 or 18.
The Big Buck Bunny DVD will ship on May 20
Internet release of the Big Buck Bunny movie will be on 30 or 31 May.

JiriH has created a very cool squash and stretch ball rig demonstrating the animation features of Blender. The rig only works with Blender 2.46 RC and above. More details and Downloads at Blenderartists.org.

Yesterday was the world premiere and after party of the 2nd open source movie made with Blender "Big Buck Bunny". It seems it was a big success for the Peach team. Can't wait to watch it with my one eyes



More Impressions of Martin Pyka about the premiere.

The new issue #15 of the Blender Art Mag covers animation basics and "beyond with a variety of articles and tutorials that will help you take your animation from ok to wow":
* Taking Your Animation to the Next Level
* Acting for Animation
* Product Modeling: SDS and Details
* Product Rendering
* Hero’s Blender Animations
* Facial Expressions in Stupidus
* Einstein Dwarf
* Blender in a Classroom

Blender 2.46 will ship with a cloth simulation. The Blenderhead nudelZ created a cool video about this feature:

One of the first contests especially for Blender was the F1 which is started this time again. Like ever "What is better then speed? More speed!".
Take a look of the results of the last year to built a real cool new speed vehicle:
2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007

The wait comes to an end, on April the 10th then secound open movie has its premiere in the Studio/K in Amsterdam. Read more about the premiere and the party at the Peach Movie Blog.

A first release of a SVG texture plugin for Blender is published. So you can map your Inkscape work directly on 3D objects in Blender. You can download the VecTex plugin at the Google code page. Like procedual textures all is 100% scalable - that means no more oversized textures for logo types and typos. It is a first public release so it's not 100% bug free.
Check out the demo video:
More about the VecTex 0.9 plugin can be read at Blenderartists.org.

Before Blender 2.50 will hit the streets the next version will be 2.46. That is now scheduled for April/ May this year and will be full of nice, new features besides the bugfixes and improvements like ever. Blender 2.46 will earn the required features of the open movie project Peach and bring that to the public:
* New Image File Browser
* Skinning Improvements
* Rendering Features (FSA, Zmask, Cubic shading)
* Mesh Deform Modifier
* Pole Target for IK
* Glossy Reflection/Refraction
* Raytraced Soft Shadows
* QMC Sampling
* Approximate Ambient Occlusion
* Weight paint visualization and Multi Modifier
* Render Baking and Normal Mapping
* Particles and Strands
* Constraint Improvements
* Armature Drawing Improvements
* Sequencer changes
* UV Editing
* Pose Libraries