Blender Underground

Let's all introduce ourselves, shall we.

My name is Dave. I'm a 36 year old father of 3 from North London in the UK (England, of course). I've been using blender for about 1 and a half years, now. It's been a fun ride.

I do my 3D pretty much as a hobby with lots of very small, unfinished projects. I'd like to do a big, finished project but I never seem to get round to it.

Next please..,

My name is Terry. I am currently living in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I'm single, live alone and work at the local university.

I work the evening shift watching over the main server room and have a lot of free time to work on hobbies and school work. I have been using blender for about a month and a half. It is the first 3D modeling program I have ever used and I love it. Its taken a while to get the interface down but everyday I use it I learn something new.

A little more about me. I'm a gamer at heart. I grew up on DnD, Rifts, Shadowrun, CyberPunk 2020 and others. I now pass the time playing games like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes. I also enjoy doing web design and playing with photoshop.

Pleased to meet you, Coyabbit. And I enjoy photoshopping to

My name is James. I am older than time (38 yrs) self employed, mostly broke, and I've been using Blender for less than half a year. I live just east of Sacramento, California, which is on the west coast of the US. I do a variety of digital related work from photo touch-up and video editing to setting up small home office networks.

Since I have almost no artistic ability, it's a wonder I love 3D and Blender so much. I'm an avid Photoshop user and have been using that app for ages (since version 5 I think). Also a wonder since, you know, the lack of artistic talent.

I spend some of my time cutting and splitting firewood, as well as milling trees into lumber. To match with my lumberjack description, I have recently tried growing a beard. I look more like a slightly pudgy version Shaggy from Scooby Doo than like a hearty, rough and tumble woodsman, but so be it. Maybe if I put on some jeans and a flannel shirt (and carry an axe around) it will help the image.

Although I should probably post this in the Showcase, I'll show you practically the only thing I have from Blender that I consider a partial success. This is the result of my following along with the Modeling the Female Head DVD by Johnathan Williamson.



This is my attempt at making my own woman. She can't talk yet, and she has no hair...and no arms or legs...or no physical form whatsoever, and she's not real....But who am I to judge a person based on some superficial criterion like reality?

Coyabbit (that is, Terry!)

I played a little DnD growing up too. Mostly this was drawing dungeons on graph paper, rolling up new characters, and taking turns with friends at DM'ing and giving ourselves all kinds of cool armor and swords, making up magic spells, etc.

I've also spent a lot of time gaming but not recently. I used to be owned by Counterstrike, DoD, and Asheron's call. The time I spent was scary. I was going to get into WoW but I became afraid that it would take over my life!!! Still I miss MMORPG'ing. And kicking massive butt in DoD/Counterstrike.

Apollos, is it my imagination, or are the edgeloops on your woman's eyes spiralling inwards? Great model, by the way. Seriously good.

Dave!!! How did you pick that out? You have a seriously discerning eye, my man. Yep, they spiral in. I would say it was intentional, but I would be lying. The result was fair enough that once I noticed, I was afraid to mess with it too much, so I left it that way. It was an accident of optimization. I have no idea how it ended up that way.

Thanks for the kind words. As long as I don't expect perfection, I am reasonably happy with it.

My name is Andrey and I'm 17. I am originally Russian, but my family moved to Richmond, Virginia when I was 10. I've known about blender for about 2 1/2 years, but used it only for the past 6 months (I had to create a DNA strand for Biology back in May and Blender seemed right for the job). I'm a student, Junior in High School. And working has really been a hinder on my Blending (is it blending or blendering?)

I am just like the rest of you guys. I have absolutely no artistic talent, but digital art seems to be a parallel universe where I just might be able to create something decent.
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I go through cycles of game addiction and complete withdrawal. 2 years ago it was the Matrix Online for 6 months then quit. Last year it was WoW for about 4 months then quit, and just this passing summer I spent at least 4 hours per day on Battlefield 2, but I quit it right when school started, because I realized in the time I'm spending playing BF2 I could learn to make a game like it!

That's a really good model Apollos, she could be your Galatea

Duke, the DNA strand sounds like a cool project, I've considered doing the same. (and it's blenderizing...or blenderationining...or something) Glad you came over to the states dude!

Battlefield was a great game, and I played for a while. Haven't played BF2.



Thanks for that. I'll start praying but I think I should give her some hair first...and a body.

My name is Jeff and I'm a former IT admin/programmer/ISP owner who burned out in the tech world after 20 years and took up OTR truck driving... I drive about 16 days a month delivering product from a local company (in southern Idaho where I live) over a large portion of the US.

I've messed about with Blender on and off for a few years but until recently didn't have the time or inclination to master the UI. Now I'm interested in producing and modding game assets for a subsim called Silent Hunter IV and Blender fits right into the tool chain.

I also like using Wings3D for doing the primary modeling as it has a very uncluttered and easy to navigate interface then exporting to .obj and finishing the job in Blender.

Cheers!

Great to meet you, Jeff! Two weeks a month sounds pretty good, but I bet those are long days.

I've heard of Wings3D but haven't spent any time with it. What game engine is Silent Hunter IV using?

I'm Brian, 45 so I think I'm the gramps of ya'll (Sorry Apollos). I live in the Great State of West (By God) Virginia. I work in emergency management for the state doing GIS of all things. Right now I'm still on vacation in Baltimore but that ends this Sunday when I finally return to my hills. I can't wait because all my 3D stuff is back home.

!!!Darnit! My brief stint as Elder Underground was short lived!!!

Good to meet you, Brian! Hope your vacation is going well.

GIS sounds interesting. Have you ever tried loading elevation data in Blender? I'm sure you have other tools for that anyway. One of my projects involves terrain, so I've been using heightmaps and the displace modifier to generate accurate terrain. It's pretty amazing.

It something from their inhouse devs, DX-based... along with Bink to handle a few formats (the movies I think)... UbiSoft made the game very modable through scripts and config files but some of us, who are into the historical aspects of the sim, (WWII US Pacific Submarine War) are adding new content etc.


Wings is really a very capable modeler, simple and uncluttered interface, right/left click selections minimal menus. No booleans or any other "advanced" features like "extrude along path" but for most of the low-poly modeling, I don't need much. I like Wings because I can concentrate on the creation, and less on the UI.

However, in trying to simplify the tool chain, Blender will become the weapon of choice I think... I hope to post some of my work and write up a few tuts as I progress with my new game assets...



Sorry Brian, '57 was the magic year for me...

Ok, I'm Valtter, a 16 year old high school student from Finland (it's in northern Europe). Hobbies are mountain biking, alpine skiing and cooking. My best subjects in school are maths (was 8th of my age group in national maths competition) and English.

I first used blender a couple of years ago, but forgotten it and now been active for about 3 months.