Tim Formica's Interview with AnimationMentor.com's Founders

I've been following Tim Formica's SIGGRAPH videos at Blendernation.com. There is already an interview with Ton Roosendal and 1 more was posted recently. In it Tim interviews 3 guys from various animating backgrounds who founded AnimationMentor.com

They are:
Bobby Beck - Pixar: Finding Nemo
Shawn Kelly - ILM: Transformers
Carlos Baena: Pixar: Ratatoullie

I thought that the interview was great because it covered the history and basics of Animation Mentor. Also, I think that those guys are doing something revolutionary. They help starting animators get into the business of CG graphics.

BTW, I share Shawn's view of Blender. Something big will happen with Blender and it will be done by just a few guys in a garage. :)

Original BlenderNation article

Part 1
Part 2

Recent Slow Down

I know I haven't updated the site in a couple of days now, the reason for that is my mic broke. I've been watching and reading tutorials from all over the net to improve my blendering skills, so I could create some original projects and take you guys through them. I should be able to fix it within a week (whenever the ColdHeat sauntering iron comes in.) Until then,

DukeProtocol

BlenderNewbies' useful tutorial

As I was rummaging through almost 5 gigs of tutorials last night (there really are that many!), I came across a BlenderNewbies tutorial that showed me something I never knew of before. Blender's Built-in HotKey and MouseAction Reference.

If you are still relatively new to Blender, I strongly suggest that you watch this video, because chances are that you will use it several times per session just because of all of the keystrokes and mouse action that you may be unfamiliar with.

Warez Spotlight - Swiff Player

I like to do special software (or Warez) spotlights. I give you, the reader, an inside view on some of the greatest, but least known software on the net.

The first official Warez Spotlight is going to be about the Swiff Player. I love this thing. You'd think that VLC would be able to play SWF files. NOPE! So your only option is to play your SWF files in your web browser without any control over the file.

*drumroll* Swiff Player is your solution!


It displays the frame rate, total # of frames, and length of the SWF video in the bottom right corner, and everything else is just as simple as it gets.

The program is free and finally gives you control over your SWF files. So go download it and enjoy.

Audio Problem

***UPDATE*** The audio problem has been fixed, you can hear fine now. I might post about the details of the solution later.

DaveC and kaveh1000 have commented that the audio is not loud enough. There is a reason for that. My mic volume is set to low, so that I don't record a lot of background noise (even with a noise canceling mic, sheesh!). That means when you watch the video put your audio up to 60% or more in order to hear decently. I'm sorry for this inconvenience, and I am trying to find ways to solve it.

Creating a Web 2.0 Glass Orb in The GIMP

In the midst of the SGI logo problem, I wanted to offer you a tutorial with a bit better sound quality. This is a text-to-video tutorial. You can find the original and many other great tutorials at TechnoMono.com The original tutorial is called "Make an Aqua Ball".

http://www.viddler.com/Protocol/videos/9/

One more thing (so Steve Jobs, I know), you can create a Glass Orb in any color you want just as long as you follow the basic steps of creation.

Video Problems/Alternatives

Recently, viewers have been disappointed with the sound quality of the SGI logo tutorial. The reason for that was because I had to upload an H264 encoded file to Viddler. "Why an H264 file?" you might ask. H264 gets the best video compression, and unfortunately poor sound compression. I had to upload that video because Viddler and Brightcove, the only sites w/o downsampled videos, will not let me upload videos that are more than 10MB in size. The screenshots at the top show you that the uploads go up to a certain percentage, and then just stop. When I was uploading the Xvid version I left for work, 9 hours, when I came back home the bar didn't move a pixel.


I want to but I can not upload high quality videos. I might try going to my library today and uploading from there, I believe they have a T1 line.

I do have download links from FileFront.

http://hosted.filefront.com/DukeAndrey

You can download the Xvid files (good resolution and decent compression, especially audio :) the H264 files, they're a bit less in size but a bit less in quality as wel;, and finally the HQ Xvid files which are 960x600 at highest resolution and 800kbps, so they are crystal clear with no blurring pixelations. Although, the HQ Xvid files are almost 3x the size of regular Xvid.

PS - If you have some spare drive space and time to download, I strongly suggest that you watch the HQ Xvid versions, even if you don't keep them, just because they're a lot easiser to view and hear.

Website Feedback

Since I just started this site, I am looking for lots of feedback in order to improve it. It can be a suggestion, a commendation, or a new idea. Any comment can be made either about the site or the tutorials, or anything else you want.

Tips for Viewing

Here are some tips for getting the best viewing experience out of the tutorials.

1. When you go to Viddler.com to get the best "viewability" click on "watch in full screen" in order to see the video in its original 800x500 resolution.

2. You can download videos from Viddler.com by going into the "Download" tab to the right of the video

3. Use the timed tags to your advantage. If you've seen the modeling part already, but did not finish watching the video, you can go straight to the material part by clicking on the "material" tag on the video timeline.

Creating an SGI logo in Blender 3D

***UPDATE*** The audio problem has been fixed, there is minimal noise and you can hear just fine at around 25%. :) Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is my first video tutorial. I've been planning to do it for over a month now, but had never done it until I ordered my new headset a week ago. Now it is all done. It is about 8 mins long and provides you with very easy instructions on how to create an SGI logo. Comments and results would be greatly appreciated :)

See the tutorial at http://www.viddler.com/Protocol/videos/5/

Download link at FileFront: http://hosted.filefront.com/DukeProtocol
Download in regular 800x500 or at High Quality 960x600