Posted a Day Ahead and Texture Baking

Thought I should give everyone a heads up for Blender User Group tomorrow.  We will be going over texture baking in the Blender internal render engine.

(There are zero lights in this render).

This is a awesome tool that can be used to improve render times, and create great textures for video games, among other things.  Here is a link to the wiki  http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Bake   We encourage you to review some of the terms so not everything is unfamiliar to you.

We will be meeting at the same place and time.  Check the meeting schedule page if you don't know when or where.

See you all there!

Time for some Cycles Fun

Good morning everyone.  Hope to see you all at Blender User Group this evening.  Same place and same time.

And a small note on what we will be cover this evening, for instruction.  We will be doing a small introduction to the Blender Cycles render engine.  This engine provides a way to achieve highly realistic lighting effects, in a relatively short period of time.

If you wish to dig into it before user group this evening here are a few links to some great resources

Cycles wiki page
Blender Cookie - Intro Tutorial
Blender Guru - Introduction to Cycles

See you all there!

Gettin Together

User group this evening!  Same place same time.  See you all there!

Modeling!

Just a reminder about our meeting this evening.  We will be going over some modeling tricks that were introduced with Bmesh in the latest version of Blender.

Also, we will be going over the pros and cons of Ngon modeling.  And show some examples of when and where to use them.

Here is a post that briefly goes over some of the new modeling features.

http://gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/20/Blender-BMesh-in-action%E2%80%A6-what%E2%80%99s-so-special-about-ngons-anyways.aspx

See you all there.

The Group is Meeting again

Quick reminder to everyone for this evening. We have Blender User Group at the Salt Lake Public Library, in conference room 3, at 7:00PM. Sorry for the late reminder, again. But, a little on what we have planned for this evening. Will Thorup is going to follow up, for just a moment, on UV unwrapping, to see if anyone still has some unanswered question. Then we will spend the rest of the time on modeling. We are going to teach how to setup reference images, and begin modeling from those reference images. Hope to see you all there!

Our Next Meet-Up

I just wanted to remind everyone of our next meetup this coming week on Tuesday.  It is on the 3rd floor in Conference Room 3.  We hope to see you all there.

Also, if you haven't been keeping an eye on Blender.org they just posted about there new way of tracking all the different Blender groups around the world.  Click here to see that post.

I have already started the meetup for Salt Lake City users, here.  And I think it would be awesome if we all could RSVP and show the rest of the world our strong little group we have started in Utah.

There is one downside to the process though.  You need a facebook account, or sign-up for a meetup.com account.  But if that isn't an issue for you, I hope you can find the time to head on over and RSVP.

Thank you!

Request for Content

Hello everyone!

We have a user group coming up this Tuesday.  And we wanted to make a call out to anyone one who would want to show and/or explain some work they are doing in blender.  Something that will fit in 15 to 30 minutes will be good enough.  Go ahead and reply to this post/email, if you are interested, and we will get back to you about it.  And if you can't share this week, there is always plenty of time in the future.  No pressure, but we want to make sure that everyone who attends has the chance to support the group, and advance the use of Blender in Utah,  by sharing what they know.

Plus, who really wants to hear Jacob, Bryce and Will talk all evening?

Yesterday was great!

Thanks to all that came out to Blender User Group Utah yesterday!

It was a great turn out.  And guess what, no one took any pictures!  But that is okay.  The next time we meet up, pictures will be taken.

But to recap a little bit of what happened yesterday.  We had a really good mix of experienced and beginning users.  So it was time to hit the basics.  And it seemed like everyone enjoyed the time we spent blending, even thought there wasn't quite enough room for everyone.

On that note.  I will be contacting the library to see if we might be able to switch to a larger room with a larger table, for next time.  And I will see if I can get the reservations for next year.

One other thing that needs to be mentioned.  I started a Google group, and you can sign up for the mailing list on the right-hand bar.  It will give you a few options, just make sure that the one at the very bottom is selected and everything should be ready to go.   I will make sure that everything that is posted on the blog will be sent through the group as well.

Also, for anyone who is starting with blender, and needs something to work on until next time, go ahead and check out the previous activities we have done.  Here, and here.  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. Post under the Google group, and we will make sure it gets addressed.

Oct 18th Activity

Before I forget. Here are a few of the logo animations from a few of the people that attended the user group last night. (The assignment is below).

Ok everyone, here is the activity for next time.

Put together a simple still life. This includes constructing a simple enviroment, 3 different still life objects, and a well lit scene.

Here is an example:

Have fun, and we will see you on the 18th.

An Activity to do Before Oct 4th

Okay, to keep everyone busy, we thought putting together a little activity for everyone to do before our next user group meeting, would be a good idea.

Since we have gone over the basics for modeling, texturing, animation, lighting and rendering, everyone should be able to put together a little logo animation.

So the activity is a 3 to 10 second logo animation.
We suggest that you come up with a simple logo.

If you need a little inspiration, here are a few logo animations that I know anyone that has been coming to the group can do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIcXkzfD4I&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdCWPA-bRk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktCVt4Xwa2Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w15OX-Kc2HM

We understand everyone is busy with their lives, but do what you can even if you cant finish the activity. The point here is to practice. There will be time in our next meeting to show what you have done to the rest of the group, if you want.

I know everyone that has been attending has the ability to do this. But if you have questions, a good source is the internet. Another ok source would be Will or Jake. If you would like to get a hold of us, just send and email to this address. blenderusergrouputah@gmail.com, and I am sure we can point you in the right direction.

Have fun!