Starting to test out one of the looks I’m going for with the scene - Night time neon ..read more

Alright so just a quick tip on sew/stitching UVs in Blender. You can find the command when in edit mode if you go to the ‘UV’ menu/drop down(top menu panel) in the UV editor panel. It’s just called “stitch”. You’ll see here that the hotkey is option+v(on mac, might be alt+v on windows). So all you gotta do is select the two edges you want to sew/stitch together and the hit “option or alt+v”. Hope that helps ..read more

PSA - Be careful when using displacement in Blender. Up until now I’ve been using “Displacement and Bump” on the material settings objects. Careful when doing this - it will automatically apply you displacement map that’s plugged into the displacement input of the material as a bump and displacement hybrid. That’s where you might be seeing some weird and undesirable spec. You’re probably better off using it as just “Displacement Only”. Then you can plug in a normal map in the “Normal” input on the material to refine the look further. Note: You’ll also want to make sure you have your mesh quade ..read more

Just ran across a problem in Blender where using displacement maps on objects would cause them to split at the edges/corners. To fix this all you have to do is go to the “Object Data Properties” tab, scroll down to the “Normal” drop down and turn off “Auto Smooth”. This should seal up the gaps for you. Reference - https://www.reddit.com/r/blenderhelp/comments/k3b3o8/displacement_maps_in_cycles_splitting_mesh ..read more

Hello there. It has once again been a slight while. Have been settling into a new gig and a new city. That said, I’m slowly getting back into the rhythm of things and starting to work on a project with a friend of mine. Anyhoo, I’m trying to transition to Blender as my primary 3D package. In doing so I’m trying to find the easiest way to do UVs. Had a script in Maya that I got from a guy on the interwebs a while back that was pretty much a one click solution which was amazing(by Malcolm341 - https://malcolm341.gumroad.com/). It was called UnWrapper - think that one is called something else now ..read more

To close a mask in the compositing mode simply press alt/option + c. This will close the mask for you. Was having a bit of a time trying to figure this out myself, so hopefully it helps someone ..read more

Sheets Make a rectangle and then scale it over a mattress avatar made in your 3d software of choice. Then run the simulation once you’ve rotated it and moved it over your mattress avatar. Now watch it drap itself over the mattress. Next use the add tack to avatar tool in the 3d window to attach a tack on the garmet and avatar on the four corners of the sheet to the underside corners of the mattress. Next run the simulation again. Now select the four side of the sheet in the 2d window and turn on “elastic” in the properties tab. Put the strength to somewhere around 20. I ended up using 15 for m ..read more

Here’s a wip image of a personal project I’m trying to wrap up in the next month. Just gotta texture and add some more assets. Probably refine the lighting a bit too. Using Blender and cycles for this one ..read more

I’m starting to forget some Blender moves as I’ve started getting into the Unreal Engine recently and I guess my mind can only hold so much info about all these programs(I also just forget things, hence this blog). One of these is the preview node shortcut in the compositor. To do this hold control + shift and LMB click the comp node you want to view the output from. It will connect the viewer node to the node you select and the result should be visible in the image editor window or on your backdrop if you’re using that ..read more

Just gonna give a quick run down here of how to rotate an HDRI/world light - along with a distant light so the shadows stay lined up. In Maya I would just parent the two lights(dome and distant) to a curve control or even just put them in a group and rotate the group, but since the world light in Blender is separate from the rest of the light objects it’s a bit more complicated. There’s a few ways to rotate an HDRI/world by itself that work fine(item tab in the ‘n’ menu and use the rotation values or a mapping node with a texture coordinate node); will post a link to tutorials on how to do tha ..read more