Grenade Explosion in Motion

Here is the grenade explosion movie that I promised. So much work for a mere 2 second animation...

Hand Grenade Tutorial Image

I just finished the How to Make a Hand Grenade tutorial by Andrew Price. In this tutorial, Andrew covers many aspects of blender: modeling, blueprints, texturing, UV mapping, image-based lighting, fracture tools, particle systems, compositing, basic animation with keyframes, and the use of the F-Curve editor. Wow! I think this is probably Andrew's most comprehensive tutorial to date. Good job!

Here is my result. I'm not entirely happy with it, but my computer is going super-slow.

The original greande, right before the explosion.

Here you can see the explosion. It is composed of the original grenade, broken up
by the fracture tool and a particle system that controls it. It also has an additional
particle system that shoots out the shrapnel pieces. The glow of the explosion is
simply an object with a semi-transparent orange material with a 

Review: Introduction to the Cycles Render Engine by Jonathan Williamson

I just finished watching the fantastic intro tutorial to the Cycles render engine, which is set to be part of Blender default package. Jonathan has a great style and very clear explanations. It really shows that he prepares ahead of time. His tutorials are straight to the point, with very little dawdling around.

Cycles promises to be an incredibly useful and fun addition to Blender's tools. At this point it does not have as many features as, say, Luxrender, but its potential is immense, especially considering the viewport render mode that could speed up setting up of scenes. It's not yet a finished product, either. some of te options have not been implemented yet. Having the capability of GPU rendering would be one of the reasons for me to upgrade as well. I keep salivating at some of tho killer GPUs I see around. Ah, one of these days... :)

You can watch Jonathan Williamson's tutorial on Cycles here.

My 3D Demo Reel

It feels weird, I have a demo reel... Such a serious-sounding thing. It actually was fun to make. iMovie did the job this time. I hope to create a better one sometime. I hope you like it :)