Robo3D Studios Blog

Artwork: Wall-e Tribute

2011-09-12T13:08:00.002-04:00

Heyyo everyone :)

So recently I ventured over to CGTalk and participated in one of their awesome Hardcore Modelling Challenges. This time it was a Pixar Tribute and I chose to model Wall-e and EVE.

(from what I wrote on CGTalk)

Out of all of Pixar's films, Wall-e has always stood out to me as being especially well made. Maybe it was the oddity of two robots falling in love with each other, maybe it was the superb modelling and shading, maybe the message contained in the film....but whatever it was, Wall-e has got to be one of the most amazing 3D characters ever created which is why I chose to model him for this HMC. Sadly, I wasn't able to complete the environment from the lightbulb scene near the beginning of the film, but at least EVE found her way into my render :D

I used Blender 2.59 for modelling and shading, Cycles for rendering, and Blender's internal compositor and GIMP for post production. The entire project took about 2 weeks worth of time.

----

Anyways, lots learned on this project and I'm again fired up for the next....whatever it may be o_O

High res

Happy Blending (and Cycles-ing? Cycling? yay new blenderhead word :D :D)

Robo

Artwork: On the Edge

2011-09-03T06:56:00.002-04:00

This is Steve. Yes, another Steve. This time Steve is looking 'over the edge' (metaphor to be interpreted as you wish).

I made this character/scene for Blender 2.59's splash screen contest (which happened a while ago now...just getting around to posting :D).

Here's the nice high res

And the splash entry

But what reminded me to go log into blogger again was a new project that I just finished! So stay on your toes for that one...posting again really really soon!

Artwork: Cold Life

2011-05-28T18:32:00.001-04:00

My first blend while running Blender on Elementary OS. After using Ubuntu for a while I decided to try out Elementary Jupiter seeing as it's based off of Ubuntu 10.10 and wouldn't be too big of a change. Elementary is basically a stripped down Ubuntu so Blender runs even faster than on Ubuntu! Yay!

Go check it out at http://elementaryos.org/

And now the render...

Weekend Challenge #432. The theme was "Frozen" so I don't really know how I got to this result considering the idea that I started with. O_o

Hopefully next I'll be posting up my finished Nissan Murano.

Artwork: Steve's Dream

2011-05-07T17:51:00.000-04:00

It's not a good idea to touch those weird...glowy-cuby-thingamawhatsits.....look what happened to Steve...

About 2? hours worth of work. All in Blender 2.57. Glowieness achieved with Indirect lighting.

Artwork: Would you like a taste?

2011-04-09T19:39:00.000-04:00

This is my first blend in 2.57 RC1. Once again, a focus on post production.

Artwork: Forgotten Friend

2011-04-02T19:30:00.000-04:00

Another composition exercise. Man, Steve is really getting around these days.

Blender 2.56, a couple of hours.

Artwork: Peace

2011-03-26T19:14:00.000-04:00

Heh, got some extra mileage off of this project.

Yearlong Challenge #10 entry:

Yearlong Challenge Banner Contest entry (say that 10 times fast :P)

And finally another entry for the 2.57 splash screen contest:

Another splash for 2.57

2011-03-19T12:34:00.000-04:00

My second entry to the Blender 2.57 splash screen contest based on my previous render.

Artwork: Under the sea

2011-03-19T12:22:00.000-04:00

This time Steve is randomly standing on the ocean floor. :D

Not much creativity here, just a focus on a realistic-ish underwater composition. Might make this into another splash screen entry for the 2.57 contest.

Blender 2.56

2.57 splash contest

2011-03-12T14:37:00.001-05:00

I am getting the idea that 2.57 is going to be released soon AND THAT IT'S THE OFFICIAL BLENDER 2.5 RELEASE?!?! I thought they were going to call it 2.6? Anyway, doesn't matter.

There's a little community contest over at BlenderArtists to decide the splash screen that will appear on the front of 2.57. I thought, after completing my last project that it might look nice with the Blender logo on top so....

My humble entry:

Artwork: I don't wanna go flying today...

2011-03-12T14:16:00.000-05:00

Another stab in the dark on my epic quest to find a personal style.

:D

Yearlong #8, Blender 2.56.

Artwork: Good thing carrots don't have feelings

2011-03-05T15:37:00.000-05:00

Yearlong #7

Really starting to love the Color Balance node in 2.5 (and sorta figuring out how to use it *properly*)

Blender 2.56

Want to make your Blender look like mine?

2011-03-01T19:52:00.000-05:00

For Ubuntu users, just place startup.blend in the "config" folder of your 2.5x build.

Artwork: My Special Place

2011-03-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

A really quick one here.

Less then an hour before entries closed for WC #419 at BlenderArtists I decided to start an entry and here is the result.

Blender 2.56, 50 minutes

Artwork: Captain Steve's Jetcar

2011-02-26T13:17:00.000-05:00

Couldn't come up with a better name soooooo.....he's called Steve. He's a comic book super hero-ish character that I invented specifically for this project (even though all you get to see is his Jetcar). Maybe I'll actually model Steve sometime in the future. But in the meanwhile, voila.

All 3D stuff in Blender 2.56 (including composite this time). For the first time I experimented with the Color Balance node to achieve the soft atmosphere effect.

And the little collectors card was done in Inkscape.

Artwork: Mouseclock

2011-02-05T11:14:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's a mouseclock. Haven't you ever seen one before?

Blender 2.56 and composite in GIMP.

Artwork: Affection

2011-01-29T10:53:00.000-05:00

Maybe a little bit of a weird title here but anyways.....

It's art right?

Blender 2.56

Blender Tutorial: How to make a 3D bar graph

2011-01-22T17:10:00.001-05:00

In this Blender video tutorial, we'll go through the process of modelling and texturing a 3D bar graph in Blender 2.5.

Artwork: Wasp

2011-01-22T08:36:00.001-05:00

Yearlong #3. The theme was "Insects" so it was the perfect time to give a shot at some high detail sculpting.

Composition was mostly in Gimp this time, rather than Blender's internal compositor.

Blender Tip: How to make an infinite ground plane

2011-01-16T18:53:00.004-05:00

In this quick Blender tip, we'll through the process of setting up an infinite ground plane in Blender 2.5.

Artwork: The Promise

2011-01-15T08:16:00.000-05:00

Weekend Challenge #415. The theme was "Water Damage". The concept behind my entry comes from the book of Genesis where, after the Great Flood, God promises to never again destroy the earth with water and puts the rainbow in the sky to remind us.

All done in Blender 2.56.

Artwork: Modern Furniture

2011-01-13T18:52:00.001-05:00

BlenderArtists Year-long #2. Theme was "In the library".....

Libraries would be awesome if they had this sort of stuff to sit in :D

Artwork: Me wants a shower

2011-01-08T16:44:00.000-05:00

Weekend Challenge #414 themed "Animal Comfort".

How to keep your slug comfortable? Give him a shower!

Blender 2.56

Frog sculpt

2011-01-08T10:28:00.001-05:00

A quick froggie sculpt.

Blender 2.56

Artwork: Winterland

2010-12-27T20:11:00.001-05:00

Happy Christmas and a merry new year. Or is it the other way around?

Artwork: 3...2...1...

2010-12-13T20:52:00.000-05:00

A last minute entry to Weekend Challenge #412. About 3 hours worth of work all done in Blender 2.55.

Artwork: Biological Camera

2010-12-06T19:54:00.001-05:00

BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #411 theme "Camera".

Artwork: Captured

2010-11-20T18:51:00.001-05:00

BlenderArtists WC # 409. The theme, "Witch hunt", didn't really inspire me at first. But after pursuing a more abstract concept, I came up with this. Took about 5 hours to complete.

click to enlarge

All 3D work was done in Blender 2.55.

ROM #12: Cables

2010-09-27T19:39:00.001-04:00

Blender Tip: How to make realistic rocks

2010-09-04T06:59:00.002-04:00

Hey there! Have you ever wondered how to make your stone textures look more realistic? Well today I'm going to show you a quick trick that will make almost any image based stone texture look real using a single procedural texture! Lets get started.

For this turorial, I'm going to use this quick rock model.

I would encourage you to model and sculpt your own but if you like, you can download mine from here ---> rock.blend (1 Mb)

UV unwrapping

Lets start by UV unwrapping our rock model. In Edit Mode (Tab) with all vertices selected (A) hit U and select "Unwrap". Open up a UV/Image Editor and discover something that looks like this:

That was easy!

Colour map

In the header of the UV Editor under the "Image" menu, select "Open", navigate to your rock texture and open it.

If you don't have one, you can download this ---> http://robo3d.com/images/stoneTexture.jpg

In the 3D view you can hit Alt+Z to view the texture on the rock model in real time.

Materials

In the "Material" buttons, hit the big "New" button.

In the "Texture" buttons, hit the big "New" button.

Change the "Type:" to "Image or Movie", set "Coordinates: to "UV" and in the "Image" panel, using the dropdown menu beside "New", select your image.

We're done with that texture. Now comes the cool part (muhahahahaha)

Bump mapping

Select the texture slot below the first texture and add a new texture.

In the "Clouds" panel toggle "Hard" and set "Depth:" to 4. In the "Influence" panel unclick "Color", select "Normal" and set it to 1.3

If we render now (F12), you'll see that it looks good.......

.......except it's too shiny. Lets fix that.

Go to the "Material" buttons and in the "Specularity" panel change "Intensity" to .2

and no, you shouldn't see a happy face on yours ;)

Render now and it is complete! Yay! I hope you can use this trick to make awesome looking rocks for your own projects! Happy Blending!

Artwork: Even flowers grow old

2010-09-02T12:16:00.000-04:00

This was my entry to Weekend challenge #400 over at BlenderArtists.

click to enlarge

Free Models: Lemon, Sparkplug

2010-08-27T07:03:00.001-04:00

Hey there! I just added two new models to my Free Resource repository! Here they are:

Textured lemon - lemon.blend (3 Mb)
2 Colour and bump map included - 18,000 faces (multiresolution 4)

Sparkplug - sparkplug.blend (1.2 Mb)
18,000 faces (subsurf level 1)

All resources are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. If you do use any of these resources in your work, please credit Robo3D Studios. See this web page for full details on this license ----> link

Enjoy!

Character: Dick

2010-08-25T15:12:00.001-04:00

The great thing about contests is that they inspire you to make things you wouldn't have thought of on your own. So meet Dick, another character born during a Weekend challenge! He starred in this render (BackOff.jpg) as the fearless warrior who would change the world. ;)

And yeah, he's not supposed to have arms......

Enjoy :D

Character: Sargent Happy

2010-08-16T18:39:00.002-04:00

He is a whale, he is happy, he is finished and his name is Sargent Happy! Yep, he's one happy guy :D

He is the result of a Weekday challenge over at BlenderArtists. Part of my entry for this contest was this (created under the theme of "whale")...

...which inspired me to clean up the model, do some stylizing and voila! Sargent Happy is born!

His rig:

Hopefully we will be seeing some animation tests of Sargent coming soon! Happy Blending :D

Free Resources!!!

2010-08-14T19:19:00.002-04:00

I've set up a free resources place over on Robo3D.com. Yep that's right....free as in free cookies! So you can head over to my site and check it out ----> Free Resources

All resources are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. If you do use any of these resources in your work, please credit Robo3D Studios. See this web page for full details on this license ----> link

Character: Steve

2010-08-13T19:45:00.003-04:00

I'd like you to meet Steve....my first officially finished character! He was created in 4 days for a weekend challenge!

He really is a simple character, designed for simple illustrative scenes and animations (like this). Made entirely in Blender 2.53 Beta.

Steve's rig in action:

I hope you like him! Oh yes....wasn't there something about a whale Yes....I need to finish him next.... (lol)

Artwork: Yep...there's internet up here

2010-08-11T11:06:00.001-04:00

click to enlarge

Hey there! This was my submission to a recent Weekend Challenge themed "The Internet".

The idea behind the image is to contemplate how far the internet has come in the past few years. Nowadays one can find internet access almost anywhere on the planet.....even up here (wherever here is) these little dudes have laptops and are facebooking and twittering with each other. :D

Here's a screenie of the blend file:

once again, click to enlarge

...and my node setup:

yep, you know the routine...CLICK!

Oh and we will be seeing more of those little dudes soon.... ;)

Happy Blending

Artwork: Reach!

2010-08-01T14:48:00.001-04:00

BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #396. The theme for this challenge was "Dr. Seuss Style". So I made a Dr. Seuss styled character and put him in a world of my own style :D

WIP: Whale character

2010-07-28T15:59:00.002-04:00

Here's a work in progress shot of a new character I'm working on. All modelling is complete....only texturing is left!!! Check back soon for a final render and a name! For now let us call him "whale"........but don't worry......he does have a name :)

Artwork: Steampunk Compass

2010-07-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

This was part of my entry for the BlenderArtists Weekday challenge #71.

Blender Tutorial: Creating lemons!

2010-07-21T10:40:00.007-04:00

Hey there! In this tutorial we're going to take a step by step approach to creating a lemon in Blender 2.5.

Modeling the lemon (basic vertex pulling)

Lets start by deleting the default cube (X). Add a UV Sphere (Shift+A>Mesh>UV Sphere). Hit T to bring up the toolbox. In the Operator panel (called "Add UV Sphere" in this case) change both the "Segments" and "Rings" values to 12.

Go to Edit Mode (Tab) and, with all vertices selected (A), scale the sphere up along the Z axis (S+Z).

I now hear you cry out in distress, "It dosen't look like a lemon, it looks like an egg!!!". Lets fix that. Turn on Proportional Editing (O <-- that's an O not a zero). Using the box selection tool (B), select 2 rings of vertices, one at each end of the lemon. Now scale them (S) a little bit outwards. Remember to play with the scroll wheel to adjust the proportional influence of the transformation.

That looks a little more like a lemon now. Finally, with all vertices selected, hit "Set Smooth" in the toolbox.

Sculpting the lemon (O_o details!?!?!?)

A lemon is not perfectly round. So, we're going to bring the it into Sculpt Mode and give it some details and imperfections. Down in the Mode selector drop down menu (bottom header of the 3D View) change it to Sculpt Mode. But before we can sculpt, we need to do one more thing; add a Multiresolution modifier.

So lets go ahead and do that. (Modifiers settings>Add Modifier>Multiresolution):

Hit the "Subdivide" button three times. That should give us enough polygons to sculpt with.

We've come to the fun part. This is where you can just let your imagineation go wild. I would suggest looking up a picture of a lemon to use as a reference image, and sculpt based of that. More ideally, you can use real lemon (raid the fruit basket!!!).

Lets start sculpting. This part of the tutorial can't be discribed step by step, so I'll just show you the general things I'm doing to my lemon.

First, using a combonation of the Draw and Smooth brush, I'm going to plump out the middle of my lemon.

Next, I'm pulling out the tip of the lemon using mainly the Draw brush.

...and the other end of the lemon...

Now I'm going into detail. You might want to click the "Subdivide" button on the Multiresolution modifier again just so you have a few more polys to work with. Some detail on the 'bottom' of the lemon:

And finally some general shaping to make the object look more organic.

Finished! On to texturing.

Texturing the lemon part 1 (colour!!!)

We're actually going to use Blender to create the most of the lemon texture. First, SAVE YOUR FILE!!! Then open up a new Blender (Ctrl+N).

If you look at your reference image, you'll find that (if you look closley enough) lemons are covered with a random assortment of dots. How do we go about making a random assortment of dots? Particles! Once again, get rid of that default cube....because we need a plane. So Shift+A and make a plane. Go to top view just so we can see what we're doing (NUMPAD7). Over in the Particles settings, add a particle system and copy down these settings:

Amount: 6000
Start: 0
End: 1
Dissable "Even Distribution"
Enable "Jittered"

Now we're going to make each particle render as a little circle, rather than a halo. Add a circle. In the toolbox, set "Vertices" to 12. Also enable "Fill".

Scale that circle down to .1 (just type in a value while transforming). The circle needs to be coloured, so go to the Material settings and click that big button that says "New". Set the Diffuse colour to #6F8B1C (<-- that's Hex...just copy/paste it into the "Hex" feild in the colour chooser). Also, enable "Shadeless".

(and no, your material preview should not have a smiley face on it...I added that)

Next we're going to make each particle render as a circle. Select the plane (RMB - Right Mouse Button) and, back in the Particles settings, find the Render panel. Toggle "Object" and select the circle from the "Dupli Object:" dropdown menu found below (mine was called Mesh.001) Also, uncheck "Emitter". (so that the plane won't render as a solid object)

Yet again I hear you cry out in dismay, "The circles look like lines and not circles?!?!?!". No sweat. Rotate the cricle object 90 degrees along the Y axis (R+Y+90). Now we're ready to render this texture.

Select the camera and clear location and rotation (Alt+G, Alt+R). Move it up along the Z axis approx. 4 units. In the Render settings, change the resolution to 1024x1024 and enable "RGBA".

Now switch to the Object Data settings for the camera. Toggle "Orthographic" and change the "Scale" value to 2.

It's render time!! Hit F12 and see what happens. You should get something like this:

Alright, we've got some randomly placed dots, time to bring it into GIMP.

Texturing the lemon part 2 (a little GIMPing)

If don't have GIMP installed, you can download it from here ---> http://www.gimp.org/ You can also use Photoshop if you're more comfortable with that application.

Lets start by opening up the texture in GIMP. First we need to make the background yellow, so in the layers dialog, hit the "Create new layer" button and select "White" in the pop up window. Then move the layer down one step by hitting the "down" button (when it becomes avalible, it is greyed out in the image.)

Next, select the "Bucket Fill" tool (from the Toolbox or hit Shift+B) and chose a yellowish colour. (I used #FFDB00) Click in somewhere on the image and watch the yellow appear. Select the original layer (click on it) and go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Change both the "X" and "Y" values to 6.

One last thing before we get back into Blender, with the dot layer still selected, go Colors>Levels, change the "Channel" to "Red" and set the "Input Levels" slider to about 1.5. (or whatever you think looks more lemonie...)

You can also play with the "Opacity" slider (in the Layers dialog). I set mine to around 60, just so the dots blend in more with the yellow.

Alright, the base texture is completed. SAVE YOUR FILE!!!!! Time to UV unwrap the lemon.

UV Unwrapping

Back to Blender now. Select the lemon and go into Edit mode. Go to top view (NUMPAD7). While holding down an Alt key, right click on the edgeloop on the back of the lemon. (if you're on Ubuntu, this may not work. As an alternative, you can select two vertices of the edgeloop, go Ctrl+E and select "Edge Loop") Now hit Ctrl+E and select "Mark Seam".

In the Timeline below the 3D view, change the window type to UV/Image Editor.

Make sure all vertices are selected (A) and, with your mouse in the 3D view, go U>Unwrap. What just appeared in the UV editor is your UV layout, but it dosen't look quite right. Remember Proportional editing mode? Yeah, we're going to use that again. Turn it back on if it isn't still enabled. Select a vertex in the middle of the UV layout and hit S. (remember to use the scroll wheel to change the proportional influence) Make the UV's look like this:

Now move the UV's around (scale or rotate too) to get them to fit nicely into the lighter grey grid. Go Image>Open, navigate to your lemon texture an open it. With your mouse in the 3D view, hit Alt+Z to enable textured draw mode. Looks lemonie eh? Lets make it look even more lemonie. (I wonder if lemonie is even a word....?)

Texturing the lemon part 3 (Texture painting!!!)

With our beloved lemon selected, go into Texture Paint mode (remember that dropdown menu on the bottom header of the 3D view?). This section of the tutorial, like the sculpting part, can't really be explained step by step. All we're doing is painting some imperfections onto our existing, perfect texture. But first, we need to do some cloning to get rid of that nasty texture seam at the back of the lemon. I already wrote a tutorial about cloning, so to reduce the size of this tutorial, I'll ask you to refer to it for step by step instructions on how to use Blender's clone tool. You can find the tut here ---> Blender Tip: Removing texture seams

First I clone away the texture seam. (remember not only to save your blend file often, but also SAVE YOUR IMAGE as well (Image>Save)

Next, some subtle colour variation using a low strength draw brush. (dark yellows, greens and browns) My subtle colour variations are so subtle that you almost can't see them. So no point in showing you a screen capture.

Now for some serious colouring. Turn up the Strength value. Starting with the tip:

...the other end...

And finally, some dents and bruses that some lemons suffer on their journey from tree to grocery store :)

The texture is now 100% complete. Yay! Here's what mine looks like:

Materials part 1 (basic settings, adding the texture)

Go to the Materials settings for the lemon and click the "New" button. You can name the material if you like. Copy these settings:

Diffuse Intensity: 1
Specular Intensity: .5
Hardness: 150

Now in the Texture settings, add a new texture, name it, and change the "Type" from "Clouds" to "Image or Movie". Load in the lemon texture using the dropdown beside where it says "New" and set the texture to map to "UV" corrodinates.

Lets do a test render now. Add a plane and scale it up a bit. Move the lemon up so that it just rests above the plane. Also, position the camera to get a better view. (go to camera view, select the camera (right click on the outermost outline) and use G to move it. Also, use Shift+F to zoom.)

Now enable "Ambiant Occlusion" and "Environment Lighting" in the World settings.

It's render time!!!! Finally, something to show for our efforts. (I hear you shouting YAY!!) Hit F12 and be prepared to wait a while (depenging on the speed of your CPU) as Ambiant Occlusion is a time consuming rendering process.

Well, it does look like a lemon, but let's make it look even more like a lemon.

Texturing the lemon part 4 (Bump maps)

Find your lemon texture image in a file explorer and copy to the same location (duplicate it). Name it something meaningful like "lemonBump". Open it up in GIMP. Go Colors>Desaturate and chose the "Luminosity" option. Now go Colors>Brightness-Contrast. Change the "Brightness" value to -60 and "Contrast" to 80. You may need to use slightly different values depending on the initial values of your texture. The idea is to get a high contrast B&W image that looks something like this:

Back in Blender, were going to use this new image as a bump map. Click the texture channel below the first lemon texture and add a new texture datablock. Name it something so you can tell easily it apart from the color map. Load in the bump map and once again, map it to UV coordinates. Finally, in the "Influence" panel, unclick "Color" and click "Normal". Set "Normal" to -2.

We'll need another bump map as well. Select a new texture channel and add a new texture. We're going to use the default "Clouds" texture this time. In the "Mapping" panel, keep "Coordinates:" set to "Generated" but set "Projection:" to "Sphere". In the "Clouds" panel, set the "Size" variable to .15 and "Depth" to 4. Set the "Normal" influence to .8.

Now try rendering. Looks good eh? One last thing.

Materials part 2 (Subsurface Scattering)

SSS lets light penetrate the surface of the model making a polagonal object look soft and organic. Go to the Material settings and enable "Subsurface Scattering". Copy down these settings:

IOR: 1.3
Scale: .013
[colour selector]: #DAB600
Color: .7

Go ahead and hit F12. We're finally finished!!!!! YAY!

I hope you learned something from this tutorial. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a question, or if you want to share you own lemon render. Happy blending :D

(final render with adjusted lighting)

Artwork: Lemons!!!

2010-07-06T20:20:00.007-04:00

An attempt at some photo-realistic lemons. Textures hand painted in GIMP. Find the tutorial here

(click to enlarge)

ROM #11: Translation

2010-07-03T21:10:00.002-04:00

Artwork: Forgotten Tunes

2010-07-03T17:08:00.002-04:00

BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #392

To create the reflective puddles, I followed a tutorial published on BlenderGuru.com That's a very comprehensive tutorial that any blenderhead should take a look at :)

Anyways, here's my latest blend:

Blender Tip: Removing texture seams

2010-07-02T17:47:00.010-04:00

(updated the tutorial for Blender 2.53 Beta)

One of the struggles I face when UV texturing models is dealing with texture seams. But there's a few little tricks that can be used to surmount this problem.

Method #1: Smearing

It's a new feature in Blender 2.5's Texture Paint mode. This technique works best with rust/grunge type textures.

I'm going to use one of my robot characters as an example. Notice the seam in his texture.

With the textured object selected, go to Texture Paint mode. Hit T to bring up the toolbox and select the Smear brush.

Then just smear around on the seams of your model and watch them disappear. Don't forget to play with the Size and Strength values to get better control over smearing.

That's the technique. If you take your time, it's possible to blend your seams together with minimal manipulation of the texture itself. Practice makes progress :) And of course, the texture may need some tweaking after seam removal (because none of us are perfect...neither is Blender :P ).

Method #2: Cloning

This technique uses another UV texture layer as a clone source which is cloned onto the rendered texture.

The first step is to create a new UV layer. Name it some meaningful like "clone" just so you can easily tell it apart from the rendered layer.

Add in a texture that you would like to use as a clone source. Parts of this texture will be used to cover up your texture seams. Now find a seam on your model. (Remember to switch back to the rendered UV layer by clicking on it.)

Staying in that view, switch to the "clone" UV layer. In Edit mode (Tab), unwrap the model (U) onto the clone source using the "Project from view" method. The result should look something like this:

Switch back to the rendered UV layer and go to Texture Paint mode. In the toolbox, select the Clone tool.

Scrolling down in the toolbox find the Project Paint panel. Make sure it is activated. Make sure "Layer" is also activated. In the drop down menu beside "Layer", select the clone source (I named mine "clone").

Now draw on your texture seams. That should do the trick, but the end result may need some tweaking using Method 1.

I hope you found these tips useful. Happy Blending everyone :D

Happy Canada Day!

2010-07-01T15:50:00.002-04:00

Well here we are! Another Canada Day! What a great day to kick off the new blog!

As you may or may not know, we used to be on Wordpress, but now we're here on Blogger! Go Google! Go Blender!! Every sentence in this post ends with an exclamation mark! Yay!

WIP: Nissan Murano

2010-06-29T12:26:00.001-04:00

Have you ever been driving down the highway and seen a car that you really like? Have you ever (a few hours later) seen another car of the exact same make and model (in the McDonalds parking lot) of the one you just saw on the highway? Well with it's automatic rain-sensing windshield wipers, award winning 265 hp engine, and on-board hard drive based navigation system, the Nissan Murano ranks probably the highest on my list of favorite cars (even though it costs about $38,000).

Aside from the crossover's specs, its exterior is what catches my attention, especially as a 3D artist. Having never modeled a vehicle before in Blender, I decided to give it a go with the Murano. To ambitious for a first car modeling project? Maybe. :) I'll just take it nice and slooooow. Anyway, here's my progress so far.

More progress to come :D

ROM #10: Halo spoof

2010-06-27T15:18:00.001-04:00

Wow, already at 10 ROMs! Anyway, this is a SPOOF on Halo.

(click to enlarge)

Artwork: B&W Gangsta

2010-06-23T15:34:00.001-04:00

MyPaint 0.8.2

Artwork: The Steam-Powered Skies Endure

2010-06-04T02:48:00.001-04:00

Made this for a Weekend Challenge over at BlenderArtists. I went for somewhat of a "Steampunk" theme with the design of the ship. The composition effect of the ship blending in with the background was achieved by using the "Overlay" layer blending mode while adding the ship to a simple sky texture. And the strange language is simply a cool font I found in GIMP. It's called "Symbol" I believe. Happy blending :D

ROM #9: Turtle

2010-06-04T02:24:00.002-04:00

Artwork: Back off!

2010-05-22T15:42:00.001-04:00

Evil has come. The beautiful world they all new so well was slowly crumbling...
One by one the mountainside villages fell to Its power....
Who would dare to try to stop the bugs? Surely not this pittyful excuse for sentient life...
But there he stands. A plucky little warrior on a solo quest to save his world...
Can he make a difference?
--------
(end of epic story)

The little guy's name is Dick by the way.

ROM #8: Volleyball

2010-05-04T15:29:00.001-04:00

(click to make it bigger)

ROM #7: Friend

2010-05-02T15:24:00.002-04:00

ROM #6: May the 1st

2010-05-01T07:10:00.001-04:00

ROM #5: Hamlet

2010-04-28T06:13:00.002-04:00

Artwork: Monkey

2010-04-20T11:13:00.001-04:00

New speedpaint created in MyPaint.

ROM #4: Eyeballs

2010-04-20T07:11:00.001-04:00

Artwork: Sympathy

2010-04-11T03:27:00.001-04:00

Hello! New render for the current weekend challenge.

A broken arm would sure be a 'pain' for a robot.....especially S4mmi3 here. He's a maintenance robot working in an underground water treatment facility. After many years of running non-stop 24/7 carrying out monotonous tasks, S4mmi3 finally runs into a road block which terminates his work: a broken arm. He now stares at his dismembered appendage...wondering......what's next? Will someone take pitty on him?

Enjoy :)

ROM #3: Hair

2010-03-28T11:49:00.001-04:00

ROM #2: Nickname

2010-03-26T12:08:00.001-04:00

Artwork: Fox

2010-03-26T10:50:00.001-04:00

Made this fox in MyPaint.

Awesome open source digital painting app, check it out -->

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

Introducing ROM, a non-daily webcomic!

2010-03-24T06:47:00.001-04:00

As a 3D artist I sometimes need a break from Blender. Drawing cartoons is a good way to clear the mind and grab some new inspiration. So, here is ROM, my non-daily webcomic.

Something to start off with....enjoy : ) ROM #1

Artwork: Spring is here!

2010-03-20T14:50:00.001-04:00

My entry for the BlenderArtists Special Challenge Spring edition. The winning entry will be used as the BA banner for the next little while.

It's called "Spring is here!".

Artwork: Welcome to my island

2010-03-20T14:45:00.001-04:00

Just a giraffe living on an island with a sign defining which way is up. What do you think is on the other side of the bridge? (BlenderArtists WC #377)

Enjoy

Artwork: The future of medicine: Synthetic Chemicals

2010-03-06T14:40:00.002-05:00

Entry for the Weekend Challenge on BlenderArtists. (#376)

Artwork: Even the smallest robots malfunction

2010-03-03T07:26:00.002-05:00

My entry for BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #375

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" This image begins to tell the story of a small, malfunctioning robot. That's all I'm telling you.....it's up to your imagination to finish the story "

Happy blending everyone :)

Free Resource - Steve the Eyeball

2010-02-21T11:55:00.001-05:00

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" I've created a new rig which I release to you guys, the Blender community. My gift to you. Steve is a basic biped...nothing tooo special. I hope you like my IK set up as this is my second free rig and I'm still learning about rigging.

If you do use him in your work, please credit Robo3D Studios. Thanks. Hope you like Steve "

You can find the rig over on Robo3D.com in the Free Resources section.

Artwork: What does he see in himself?

2010-02-16T08:18:00.001-05:00

My entry for BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #373

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" This is a self absorbed eyeball creature who can't get enough of himself.

The meaning? Don't get caught up in the outward appearence of yourself, or anyone else. Because it's what's on the inside that really counts. "

Happy Blending!

Artwork: Forgotten Talent

2010-02-09T12:19:00.001-05:00

I created this scene for the BlenderArtists Weekend Challenge #372.

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" The story. There was a rockstar who could play the guitar really well. But he thought that the saxaphone was much cooler. So, he abandoned his guitar (in the slums of the city where he lived) and chased off after his dreams.

The idea I'm pointing at here? Don't say to yourself, "Oh, I wish I had the ability to play the saxaphone rather than the guitar..." No. You have talents for a reason, so be content, and use them to the best of your ability. "

Happy Blending :)

ColdBlood: Granite map second beta release!

2009-09-23T06:06:00.001-04:00

After a huge expansion of the Granite map, I release a second beta, version 1.3

Grab the map here ---> http://robo3d.com/media/Granite1-3_map.blend

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" New to this release:

The island has been expanded
2 new complexes to explore
Water surrounding the island just to look pretty
An invisible barrier so you can't walk off the edge of the world
Jumping! So you can get onto the roofs of the complexes
And just a lot more props here and there...

Bugs. Yep there are lots of glitches in this map:

Jumping is crazy! You can even jump over the invisible barrier and get locked out. (oh yeah and you can land on top of the palm trees....that is fun)
Collision is not that great.
And a few graphics issues with transparency and stuff... "

Enjoy!

New map for ColdBlood: Granite

2009-09-16T11:18:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone!

I've released a beta version of a new map called Granite for the ColdBlood FPS. This is version 1.0

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" Features in this release:

Organized object group system allowing you to easly edit and expand the map
Transparent water that you can walk through (you can't get out of the pond though...lol)
Buildings. You can easily walk in and out of them. (an upgrade from Ziant)
Rigidbody barrels

What to expect in the next release?

#1 An invisible barrier so you can't walk off the edge of the world
#2 Roofs on top of the buildings
#3 Buildings on top of buildings, high platforms
#4 Jumping (so you can get onto the high platforms)

Keep in mind that the camera you use to walk around will not be the character you use in the game, this is simply a test character.

What I want you to do:

#1 Explore. (even though it's a small map)
#2 Let me know all the things you don't like about the map.
#3 Let me know all the things you do like about the map.
#4 Let me know all the things you'd like me to add to the map.
#5 Post all your feedback on this thread.
#6 Enjoy yourself "

You can grab the map from right here ---> Granite_map

And check out our thread on BlenderArtists here ---> link

Free Resource - Steve the Bunny

2009-08-18T07:10:00.001-04:00

I wrote on BlenderArtists:

" I created Steve the Bunny for two purposes:

#1 To give something back to the Blender community
#2 To have a rig to experiment around with

This is my first free rig and I plan to make more. I hope someone can make use of Steve.... "

So why don't you head on over to the Free Resources section of Robo3D.com and download Steve! --> Free Resources

Durian DVD pre-sale

2009-08-01T05:35:00.001-04:00

The third Blender Open Movie project has really taken off and the pre-sale campaign just started! This time it's going to be a triple disk collection! Yeah that's right...3 disks containing the movie, video tutorials by the artists and devs and all the elements used in making the movie (.blend files, models, textures, and much more)!!

And here's another cool thing: if you order and pay by September 15th, you'll get your name in the movie credits! How cool is all that? So head over to the Durian blog and preorder your copy! ---> Durian.Blender.org

Hello World!!

2009-04-12T14:46:00.002-04:00

This is the Robo3D studios blog! Feel free to comment and tell me what you think! You can check out the site here: http://robo3d.com