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Showing category "resources" (Show all posts)

2 - New Stuff

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, In : News 
Hey all!

I'm so excited to share this with you!  A new story!!

Little background: A short while ago, I started talking to a company's social media manager on insta and we just hit it off! I adore this dude!! He's so cool! Anyway, Staedtler has these competitions where you sometimes draw, sometimes take pic and sometimes write a story. The first competition of their's I entered was actually a story writing comp and I wrote it so fast! It wasn't the most original concept - body switch - but I lov...

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Voice Over Challenge

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, December 3, 2020, In : News 
Hey all!

Today was the most unexpected thing!

I usually comment on Joshua Alexander's blog - which I adore btw! And I always try to come with something comical, sometimes though funny, his posts hit a little close to home - I guess it's because we both have a background in wedding videography, lol.

So anyway, I was late to comment on his latest post, because the week has just been insane to say the least, but when I finally got to it, he issued me a casual challenge - to produce my comment. He e...

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That Square Little Box - Short Story

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, May 9, 2020, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

   This is a short story I recorded recently. I've been looking for something to record and a short story was a given choice. Looking through a few public domain options, Arthur Conan Doyle's That Little Square Box was super! I will keep saying it, I love the twist at the end - no spoilers below btw!


The entire thing was pieced together in Blender's VSE. I had to do a lot of work for it in Audacity and Anvil Studio, but Blender just did a better final mix, because of it's ability to ke...

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Let's talk Voice Over

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, March 30, 2019, In : Tips 
Hey all!

I recently got to give my web presence a bit of a face lift - like yay! haha.

I also recently made some voice over demos. I have to say, I absolutely love doing voice over work. To make a demo, you need material that doesn't belong to someone else and the LORD generously gave me a swift motivation to make some demos and over a period of two days, I made 7 demos. 7! I was so tired afterward, hahaha.

You can check them out in this playlist!

So getting back to material you can use. When you...

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New Node Groups

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, October 8, 2018, In : News 
Hey all!

Recently I got to upload quite a lot to the Panther Dynamics main website. While it's not large in file size, it certainly makes Blender's compositor just much more useful!

Today, I got to add two new additions. While they essentially perform the same task, one allows for scene integration and the other is traditional in its approach. I'm talking about pixelation!

Pixelation is, like any other style, used for various things. Often when people think of pixelation, they think of pixel art...
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Colored outlines with Freestyle

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, May 12, 2017, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

Last night I got a tutorial request from ChrisToons on YouTube. He requested a video about how to make colored outlines with Freestyle and initially, I thought this would be on of those things where it's so easy to do, there is no point to making a video, so I sent him some links and went looking for a video. I did not find anything that I had peace about sharing, though I did send him some links, which you will find at the end of this post.

Anyway, after some debating and going back a...
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Removing packed textures

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, April 17, 2017, In : Tips 
Hey all!

A friend from Italy asked me if I could make a small video for him that would explain and show how to remove packed textures. I wanted to refer him to a YouTube video, because I had a serious garden day and other stuff, but oh snap, there was nothing! I mean nothing! Even in searching Google you find relatively little information.

I think this may be because it is sometimes something only newer users struggle with, but it seems to be enough of an issue that it warrants a quick tip, bec...
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For Anime - Flag

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, April 8, 2017, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!!!

Wow, this week really kicks off with a bang! A new example or experimental video, followed shortly by a tutorial! This week is certainly off to a wonderful start!
   If you do Blender tutorials, you have certainly done one of Andrew Price's many many amazing tutorials. I have learned a lot from him and this week, he uploaded a new video - making an animated flag! Of course, his is realistic, so, this was the way I was led! :D


GOD is so great!

Very shortly after uploading the video, I g...

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Bible Animations time

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, In : News 
Hey all!!

Most of you have noticed that this blog is extremely quiet. The reason for that is that I have not been able to get to tutorials of pretty much any kind. My sole focus has been the current Bible animations, which is by far the largest project yet and will take the most effort. That means that this blog, as well as the main website blog, take a back seat to the Bible Animations Blog, which you can find here:

!!!!!CLICK HERE!!!!!

Just to give you an idea of what to expect, here is the Vl...

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Pick it up

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, January 19, 2017, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

Another quick tip!


GOD is so great!

Now, it's been a while since I actually got to make a quick tip video. I like these for many reasons, but most of all, that it's not hidden somewhere in a tutorial with a different name - very very easy access.

As you guys know, I also got to put up another video today about how to create a newer style candle for anime style animations and this one flows from that video. While I was working on it, GOD gave me the solution for the picking up of an objec...

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For Anime - Old Style Candle

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, November 21, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

Yes! Another For Anime fire tutorial:


GOD is so brilliant!!!

So, today I finally got to the editing of this tutorial and I'm super excited about it and I hope you are too! This tutorial assumes you know quite a bit about Blender, because I time-lapsed as much as possible to keep the video as short as possible. For example, the animation process for the character took me well over an hour, not to mention the modelling and texturing of the other elements that have nothing to do with the f...

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For Anime - Lightning and Electricity

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, October 3, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

That time again, and wow is it happening a lot more often than I expected it to, hahaha. This time, like the title says, we're talking about electricity! The thumbnail pretty much gives it away. Check it out:


GOD is so awesome!!!

This one has a curious story. Infamous Otaku had asked me if I took suggestions and that if so he can suggest some tutorials. Some were basic, but some have little to no work around.
Here are his suggestions:
- Eye color change
- Fireball
- Thunderbolt

 - Eye color ...

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Caustics - Not really

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, September 21, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

Another exciting day for me! Another tutorial! :D

In this tutorial, you guessed it, we're covering how to make caustics in Blender Render. Yes, they are not physically accurate, but they are very stylized! Check it out!


GOD is so good!!

Now, obviously, these can be adjusted to suit your project. You can even change the texture. The whole goal of this is to show you that you really can apply this in Blender. GOD had me learn this this week and I am so thankful that I get to share it so so...

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Speedily

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, August 20, 2016, In : Teaching 
Hey all!



Many times we feel extremely overwhelmed by our situations and it's tempting to become bitter toward GOD, but it just makes things worse. Now your situation is bad, and you have a lousy attitude which makes you feel worse and you feeling worse, makes you act bad and so you situation gets worse and you get more bitter and so on.

GOD loves us so HE's shown us that HIS joy is our strength. It's not a vague concept that is too hard to grasp - it's the result of following the HOLY SPIRIT's ...

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Sound panning is not broken

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, June 23, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

I have to be honest, I also thought that it was broken, but I am so glad GOD did not let me leave it there. I felt prompted to google it. There is always a chance that it may be a bug or whatever, BUT, it was just lack of clarity. For a program as advanced as Blender, tutorials are a must!

So, in the spirit of bringing you tutorials by GOD's grace, we are going to talk about Audio Panning in the VSE (Video Sequence Editor).


Audio options in the N panel, VSE.

Firstly, if you're reading th...

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Sun glare time

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, May 27, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey everyone!

GOD is good! For more keep reading - for the tutorial - well here it is, haha:


(GOD IS AWESOME!!!)

I am honored that GOD would use me to make these and I don't take it for granted. I realize that I have, but I am truly amazed that HE uses me for this.

The main problem with this type of sun glare is the hexagon. To get a hexagon shape from a round sun was the wrong question, as HE showed me. You can easily do it the other way around, like in the video. The extras in this video includ...

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Make Human blog post

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, May 18, 2016, In : The Gospel 
Hey all!

In the last post, I got to share with you guys the finished Esther 6 video (wow, GOD is awesome!) and I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Now, of course, there are people reading this, that are curious about how to make these things in the first place. As GOD would have it, HE arranged for me to write a post on the official Make Human community website so you can get a very good scope of what goes into a short and specifically, characters from Make Human!

Check it out!
http://www.makehumancommun...
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Esther 6 Complete

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, April 19, 2016, In : News 
Hey all!

Now, most of you who follow this blog, has probably subscribed to the YouTube channel and gotten the e-mail, but, I felt lead to share this here specifically, so I believe there's someone here that has not yet gotten to see it.

Around the 22 of November last year (2015), GOD told me to make a new Bible animation and this time it has to be chapter 6 from Esther. And I did not want to, hahaha. Really did not want to. HE has me on another project that is on hold at the moment, until the n...
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Manuel Bastioni Lab 1.1.0

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, March 9, 2016, In : News 
Hey all!

Some of you may be aware of Manuel from the Make Human project. He's quite the modeler and is no stranger to producing high quality human models. In using this skill, he put together a new character creation add-on for Blender, which stands separately from Make Human, called Manuel Bastioni Lab 1.1.0 (current version).

What makes this one unique is that it's directly in Blender and it supports a shojo anime style - classic and modern.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the shojo style, be...
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For Anime Tutorial series 1 - Water Reflections

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, February 8, 2016, In : Tutorials 
Hey all!

I have had this on my heart for quite a while, to do a series on modelling for anime style backgrounds. In this one, we look at Water Reflections:


(Very short and very straight forward)

Now, this is also a very simplistic way of doing these sort of reflections. In fact, this is just when water flows in a straight line. If you have water that goes around bends, you need to adapt this and unwrap your river and toss out the empty and use the texture offset options. To show you how this wor...

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Increased speed results

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, February 1, 2016, In : General 
Hey all!

Today I posted a solid article about increasing your render speed in Blender Render - so just to help you out, I put together a project that is just a burst and that will show you the difference when you apply some of what what's written to a render vs not doing so. So first the image without the applicable tricks applied:

Render time: 4 minutes

Image with speed-up tricks applied:

Render time: 31seconds

The main differences are:
 - A little more noisy if you check it out at full resolution...
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Inkscapeness

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, January 20, 2016, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

I haven't gotten to do a post about a verse image in a while, so like yey for this one!! :D

Today we'll be talking about this one:
__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Inkscape was the program of choice for this one and it was quite an experience being back in Inkscape for a final piece. I'm used to using it for textures and other stuff that has a production function, but it wa...

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Demo reel

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, January 12, 2016, In : Works covered 
Good day all!

Some of you may have noticed that there have been a tumble weed blowing through this blog, hahaha. It's been over a month, but such is life. If you follow the Facebook page and other two blogs, I can confidently tell you that you would not have seen dust collect on the production side of things, haha. GOD is always working (John 5:17). Thankfully we get to take a break, (SUPER thankful!).

Anyway, last week, GOD had me make a demo reel. I was not happy about the idea (not because i...
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New verse image

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, December 3, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Been a while since I've actually made a post like this! haha. Today we get to talk about a specific work and I let you in on a few technical aspects of it's making!


At first glance, this verse image seems rather simple. While it does not have all that many objects in the scene, it certainly does have a lot of work put into it.

Initially, I wanted to simply model and texture a tower (solid block) and then use the explode modifier to break parts of it out. There were a few problems with t...

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New tutorial

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, November 26, 2015, In : Tutorials 
Good day everyone!

New tutorial time again and this time, film! No, not that old, out of focus type things, and no, also not theatrical, but the physical thing. We are looking at how to achieve a film look in Blender, without degrading the footage too much, but still get that film-ness from brand new footage. Film is a great medium, because of the look it has, not for it's technical capabilities (though they cannot be ignored concerning resolution), but it's comfortable to watch and does not w...
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GOD is awesome!!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, November 25, 2015, In : News 
Hey all!

I am super excited to tell you guys that GOD is starting to put me out there for people to take notice of HIS grace! On Sunday, I was approached, after sharing the Genesis 1 video below, to have my info featured on a website dedicated to help spread the word on Indy Christian Artists of various areas in multi-media. This website's name is IndySpotlight. I'm so thankful and am so honored that GOD would bring this offer and ask me to take it too! YOU are the best!! You can check out the...
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What is covetousness?

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Sunday, November 15, 2015, In : Teaching 
Hey all!

I'm not one to generally post teachings here, apart from the Blender stuff and the Gospel, which accompanies every tutorial, but today I feel lead to share this with you.

Since I was very young, I never really understood what it meant to have covetousness or what it really was. It almost sounds like a disease in a way, haha. But no, it is very closely linked with greed, but not in just a monetary way. You could say that this is a greed for things.

Let me tell you how GOD revealed this t...
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Make Human Shoe Flex

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, November 11, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!!

Today I get to share a quick tip for all those Make Human users, who combine it with Blender - Shoe flex! What can I possibly mean? I think the following thumbnail will make it clear:


(Actual video embedded below)

This video comes from GOD dealing with me about finding a solution for this, since a few months ago. Before that, I just kinda resigned to the assumption that I would not be able to fix it without fancy steps that I was nowhere near qualified to deal with. When HE gave me thi...

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Toon shading in Cycles

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, September 18, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!



To save a little time, I posted the video at the bottom, so if you want to just see the how to, scroll. BUT, if you want to how it became, then please read :).

Two days ago, GOD challenged me to figure out how to do proper toon shading in Cycles. When I say proper, I'm talking about flat and sharp shading and no fuzzy edges, except on 'painted' elements. After getting the challenge, I went about trying to do it and I just could not get a hard line. Smoothness was on 0 and I just couldn...
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New YouTube videos

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, September 2, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Thanx to everyone who watches the videos on YouTube. I really appreciate every view and like. The encouragement rocks!

Over the past few weeks since the Anime Style Sea tutorials, I've asked GOD what HE wanted me to do next and HE actually had me make 4 new videos, so quite busy, hahaha.

One that really stood out was the channel trailer:


(Remember to click subscribe ;D)

A very fun video, imo, which basically makes the point that the channel's main focus is animations and tutorials. At lea...
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Quick Tip: Animation Speed Adjustment

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, August 24, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Here it is, under 3 mins!


(Character made using Make Human)

Know JESUS yet?

Have a great one!!!

Thank YOU!!!!!!

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Anime Style Sea in Blender series

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, July 29, 2015, In : General 
Hey all!

These have been such fun and such hard work, but I know you are gonna luv these!!




(Click to view on YouTube)

May these bring GOD absolute glory, because without HIM, not a single frame would be possible here!

Biggest thanx!
Huge thanks to GOD for helping me with this. YOU have helped me put this together, helped me polish it and package it so others can learn these great techniques as well! Thank YOU so much for every app that has been made freely available. Without YOU, none of this woul...

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Lip-syncing in blender

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, June 30, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

GOD is really on me about these tutorials, haha. I'm glad, because I get to share so much with you guys and it's an amazing privilege. Now, today, we are covering lip-syncing! No, I'm not teaching you how to mime your way through a singing career, haha. No offence to singers of course, I am one, hahaha.

Anyway, you can jump straight into it here:


(Click to view on YouTube)

Ahh, still scrolling are we? haha. Well, that means you want to know a bit more about what is covered in the tutoria...
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Compositing only render in Blender

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, June 1, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

What in the world does that even mean, compositing only render? Simply this, you don't want Blender to do anything with the scene, you just want to use it's compositing on a video or an image sequence. GOD laid it on my heart to figure this one out and HE showed me the way to do it as well! HE's so cool!

It's very simple!
Here are the steps:
> Make sure Blender is set to the resolution and frame rate of what you want to composite (before importing anything! Blender does not adjust this f...
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Anime hair tips

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, May 28, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Today is sort of like a supplement to the tutorial, if you will. I want to expand a bit on doing the hair, specifically relating to that light band:


(Click for full-res)

As you can see, we have quite varied results. Depending on what you are going for, you would choose the selected approach. For me, personally, from the results I've seen from anime artists and real life, you have to use contrasting directions for your light band. Meaning, if the hair goes vertical, the band goes horizon...

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Make Human to Anime in Blender

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, May 20, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

This is going all around the Panther Dynamics blogosphere, haha:




(Advanced tutorial: No screencast keys, interface knowledge expected and some modelling experience)

In this tutorial I show you how to go from Make Human to an Anime style character in Blender. You'll be surprised at how much prep is really done in Make Human to get the character modeled rigged and ready for Blender. In addition, I also show you how to add that painterly background.

Curious about how that painterly effect w...

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Monitor adjustment

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, April 24, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Today is a little something different than the usual, ain't all posts, hahaha. We are talking about setting up your monitor correctly, so you nr1, don't see something that the rest of us can't and nr2 that you get a consistent result, no matter what you are working on! Remember, this is not the absolute standard, as everyone sits in different lighting and so, you have to adjust your screen to reflect the right results for your environment, however, certain absolutes do apply when sett...
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Greater efficiency

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, April 17, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Recently, I've noticed how GOD has me do certain projects to learn new things and then turn around and have me use those results for new verse images! I luv that!! It maximizes my efficiency and I'm so grateful!!!

The latest of these, is a result I really have been after for a while and that is to be able to make a proper anime look in Blender. In my case, using Make Human as the model's ground work - we really don't need to re-invent the wheel on something like this. Yes, later when w...
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Nebula time

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, April 8, 2015, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Today I get to share something very cool with you all - a nebula! Basically, they are what is left over after a star-exploded. Or so I'm told. Never been to such an explosion myself, so I can only say what I've heard. Anyway, here is the result GOD helped me get:



It did not start at this. The basic layout, somewhat, but not the above! No, hahaha. No, a friend of mine said that it looked like a pink powderbomb exploded, hahaha. Not this result, but the first one. Ironically, that is wha...
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Quick tip - Cloth sims

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, March 27, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

I'm super pleased with what GOD showed me this morning and I believe HE wants me to share it with you all and I'm sure you are gonna luv it!

When we use cloth sims, we usually have something that we want to have settle before the actual animation starts. It can be a piece of cloth landing on a table. It can be something that has to be draped, it can even be something like curtains. This usually means something in the range of 80 - 150 frames of wasted animation space, and dare I say it...
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Some cel shading tips

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, February 18, 2015, In : Tips 
Hey all!

I really need to get back to posting more things here, haha. In the meantime though, I've got some tips for you all on cel shading in Blender Render.

First, we need an image to talk about:


This is a classic example of cel shading that does not get an outline that is pitch black. The only outline here is to the overall cloud-line (only visible super close-up).

Now, cel shading here is something that is very sensitive and needed a ramp option. So tip nr 1 is:
 > Do not be afraid of using th...

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Sunbeams Node

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, October 27, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey all!

I'm sure that most of you know about the sunbeams node, but I wonder how many of you have actually given this little feature a shot and have seen it's results?

Today, I would really like to inform you about this little new feature that actually proves to be a lot more helpful than I thought.

Sunbeams vs Directional Blur
   For starters, the Directional Blur node is not designed to leave the scope of the canvas. If you wanted to have your light-source out of the frame, you just ran into a...
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Simple anime hair physics

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, October 16, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Today's video is quite an interesting one. Now, in the past, I've not been really strong in the field of rigging and GOD has brought me a long way with tutorials, but, today was just the cherry on the cake when I got to make this test after HIS inspiration:

Without rotation


With rotation; exactly the same rig

A while back, I knew this was possible, but I did not know how this person whose video I saw, implemented it. Not a clue. I thought it would be some sort of bone constraint and whil...
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Cast approx

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, September 9, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Today I get to share something a little different. Cast approximately in Blender Render. Yes, this seems like this far off feature in the materials settings, and quite frankly, it is, but, it does make a difference:


(none, haha)

Now, ironically, I know this looks like a waste of time, but you and I both know there are features we turn off and on by random, because we think it has this or that effect. While working on an image yesterday, I turned it on and it seemed to give me much bette...

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Creating a text glow

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, September 2, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Just a quick tutorial here on how to make a glowing text image, like that used in this thumbnail:

(See the video, Cross Allegiance, Cross Allegiance Facebook)

Now the text here are separated from the logo, text and photo. So, everything is done in Blender, except for the those, ie the text and the glow effect.
The text itself, gets separated by material index, so we can make it glo. Essentially, you'll be seeing this, once you've setup it's material ID:

(Credit to Sterling for sending me ...

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Turn that table eagle

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, August 26, 2014, In : General 
Hey all!

I know it's been eagle week here, if you will, haha, but here is a turn-table render of the final model:


Have a great day!!

Thank YOU!!!!!

Continue reading ...
 

GOD's sense of humor is incredible!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, August 25, 2014, In : General 
Hey all!

I'm working on an eagle model and GOD gave me two extremely funny images in the last steps. I hope you enjoy these as much as I have!



Having said this, HE's also serious about excellence and this how the eagle looks currently and it's progress:

When the head started taking shape


Basic body shape and wings


Very little body modification and feathering on the wings


Toon material on full view with subsurf and freestyle


Body done - needed eyes still


Still needs a third toe on each claw, but very ...

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NPR

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, July 16, 2014, In : General 
Hey all!

As this has been something I've been working on for quite some time, I'm writing a post on the subject. So, here goes.

NPR is Non-Photorealistic Rendering. It is basically presenting recognizable objects in a specific style. For example, if you want to broaden the term 'rendering' to traditional art, basically all the stylistic movements (excl realism), fall into this category.

Just to link to a few examples:
- Figure 3-3 on this page
- The horse (first image you see on the page) here
- Ba...
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Standing still at compositing

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, July 3, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey all!

Now, a lot of you have, like me, opened the Node editor in Blender, seen the massive grey area and closed it just as quickly, but this, terrifying new thing, should in no way intimidate you more or less than any other feature of Blender.

Compositing is the focused use of this post, and so I won't go into textures, however, I do hope to show you the importance of learning this feature and becoming truly a master of it.

Let's start by naming some things that you can add to your image node...
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Caustics and aberration

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, June 2, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey there everyone!

Today I was lead to make two posts, one here and one on the main site, both about a work previously done, but being specific on some valuable tips. In this case, we'll be taking an image from quite a while back, the Blender logo in an underwater environment:


(Blender name and logo TM of the Blender Foundation, see policy on logo use here)

Now, there are a few things to note:
1 - This image was done in Blender Render, which means we have no caustics
2 - No chromatic aberration w...

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New work

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, In : Works covered 
Good day you all!

Today's post starts off with a new verse image:

(Blender Render + Freestyle + Compositing)

This one was particularly a challenge. Earlier this year, I wanted to try using a voronoi texture to simulate what an anime ocean looks like in shallow waters, but, this did not go according to plan, hahaha. So, realizing that, I still went for a somewhat toon-ish approach on this one and added a bit realism or 3D to it. I really really like the result! :D

If you're ever looking for crisp,...
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The animated version is here

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, May 16, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

In the last post, I showed you guys a new image, as well as the tutorial on how to make the curtains in that image. Today, I get to share with you the animation!


(Editing by Sterling Christian Franklin, Cross Allegiance -- full credits, see about here)

I'm super jazzed that GOD is using this little video to encourage and uplift people. Sometimes I struggle to sleep myself, for various reasons and one of those used to be safety. My bed has always been right by my window and in the winter...

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Check out dat curtain

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, May 12, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey there!


Today's image actually comes with a tutorial, not just the how-to in text form! But first things first, ta-ta-da-daaaaaa, the image:


(obviously night time, haha)

Anyway, this one was spectacular for me, because of the curtains. I saw a tutorial a short while back on using shapekeys to pull curtains and wow! Check it out:


I just reeeeeeaaaallly enjoy this technique. While I had to adapt it to suit the scene above, it was so essential to making the curtains that modeling would not have t...

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Dat sun glare

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, April 22, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Today I cover this little gem again, for those of you who may have missed the original post quite a while back; sun glare


(click image to see in motion)

Before:


As you can tell, compositing is an essential part of such an image and this is what the node setup looks like for the finished image:


Vector Motion Blur
Now, the above dolphin whale of a node system (no really, look, it's swimming to the left) is what determines the glare. It contains mainly vector blur nodes, because the image is ...

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From sunrise to sunset

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, April 17, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Today's work is another verse image that had a few sets of challenges, some that may really surprise you:

(Click image or here to view full size)

Now, this was a not a fun one to make. Not because I don't like the verse, because I really like it, but because of it's challenges. 3D software is not designed to produce two worlds in the same image nor two times. No, they're geared toward getting a world feel. That meant that this project needed a serious rethink in method.

There were three ...

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Millstone

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, April 3, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!

Time to cover another work! This one is quite something different for the usual verse images:



In this image, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the grinding pattern, but after some research, I found that there were many many many patterns used on these millstones. I looked to see if there was at least one swirl, because it's easy to make, and there was! If I remember correctly there was more than one.

The look of the stones was inspired by the look of ruins. Many ruins have various loo...

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'nuff said

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, March 29, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey everyone!

You know, sometimes GOD's Word just leaves me speechless. This is one of those times:



I have nothing to add.

Have a great one!!

Thank YOU!!!!!!
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Gimp it up

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Saturday, March 29, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey everyone!

Comin' at ya with another work! Today, we're talking about using the Gimp to make images like this:


Firstly, this video thumbnail is for a ministry called Cross Allegiance. If you've read some of my previous posts, odds are you've seen the name and linked to it. I've been working with them for quite a while now on a voluntary basis and it's been fantastic to say the least. I totally recommend you visit Cross Allegiance. If you do...
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Fixing reflections

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, In : Tips 
Hey all!!

Shiny materials can be your biggest asset in a scene as well as your biggest foe. Just take a look at this scene:

In this very simple subway scene, we notice that the shiny nature of the tiles really enhance the space and in some instances make it feel a bit more open, but also colder. It's that cold factor we need to watch out for!

Now, take a look at this scene:

The puddle here is not such a focal element, yet because of the glare and composition, your eye may be drawn to it the most....

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Apples for realism

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, In : Works covered 
Good day!

Today's image was a fun one to make, but such a challenge at the same time and it wasn't due to the unwrapping, but very much due to the difficulty in texturing.


> Texturing:
As you all know, I really prefer procedural textures and would even do text that way if it were efficient enough, haha. This of course means that image textures are always a last resort (which usually includes UV's), but in this case I had no choice. I needed books in the scene and thankfully, GOD gave me enough b...
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Glow in the cave

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, February 26, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey everyone!

Today's piece is this one:

Cave image made with Andrew's tutorial (modified quite a bit)

This was such a fun piece, but such a challenge! The biggest of which was the main crystal. The cave itself was a challenge, because the cave did not want to respond right to the textures. It was a constant struggle with the reflective shader. Finally, after dropping it, it looked like this:

(Progress shot)

Granted this is not like Andrew's, but this was what I was happy with in the end. Andrew's...

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4 seasons

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, February 11, 2014, In : Works covered 
Hey all!!

A short while ago I did quite a few images based on the public domain poems that accompany the 4 seasons musical pieces. And today we'll be looking at one specifically:



As you can tell, this is not my typical style of work, because I almost never have human beings in my work. Not that I don't want to, but they're sooooo difficult to make, in terms of the face. The rest is fine, the face is the problem, haha.

What made this one difficult was the lighting and the sheer scale.

 > Lighting
I...

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Welcome

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : General 
Good day everyone!

Well, as you all know, I have a blog on the main page. This blog, however, will be only about this here site!

So, I hope you enjoy it and that you find some useful tips and hints and as always, please subscribe and like and link to, etc.!

Have a great one!!

Thank YOU!!!!!!

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About Me
Good day! I really appreciate your time and I hope this blog adds value to you!
If you don't know Jesus yet, check out:
http://www.crossallegiance.org/
Marius Oberholster
(+27) 073 104 2834  |  marius.oberholster@gmail.com  |  Contact

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