Freestyling in Blender

Long time ago when I still was a student, I had time and lacked principles (it’s the other way round now, yay for being adult…). Back then I have been playing with pirated 3D Studio MAX and Illustrate! plugin. This combination allowed for creating sophisticated cartoon renderings, way more advanced than just regular cel shading options available in 3DS:

I assume that if you are reading this blog, you must at least have heard about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – this anime was also done using the combination of 3DS MAX and Illustrate!

At some point in my life I have decided to stop pirating software, movies and music. I still occasionally download a cool song or a movie, but I moved forward to using only legal software and paying for cultural goods I consume. From that point on, software such as 3D Studio MAX has become unavailable to me due to its cost. I am not a professional, I do not intend to make a profit from using it and the price tag is way above my financial level.

But I still have this little dream of creating a short animated movie, mixing 3D and 2D, and this is where Blender steps in. Blender is a 3D creation program that has more than enough options for a home user – I have written about it at least a couple of times and indeed I do have a soft spot for it. Some people (cough, Wojciech Orliński, cough) might laugh at free software, claiming it is inferior to commercial programs, and to some extent they are right (although not always so) – but for millions of students and folks from developing countries all around the world, this is a good and legal alternative.

Unfortunately, Blender has always been quite far behind 3D Studio MAX in the cel shading department. Yes, it was possible, there were some tutorials showing how to use it and whatnot, but it was all limited and difficult to use. The results wouldn’t be anything that could really threaten Illustrate! plugin.

While googling furiously for something with more potential, I have found Freestyle project. At the time it was barely usable. Perhaps someone with more skills and time on their hands than me might have managed to make it work – I didn’t. But the sample renderings from the project gallery were quite cool indeed:

Renaissance sketching style

Technical drawing
(compare with similar Illustrate! image above)

Japanese painting style

I have been patiently waiting for Freestyle to be incorporated in Blender ever since, checking back every now and then, when just recently – tada! – it has finally happened. As you can read in this post, Freestyle is being integrated with Blender. You can download the latest Freestyle-flavoured version from GraphicAll (just look for Freestyle branch). The process of setting the whole thing up is made easier thanks to a proper tutorial (download the PDF here). I haven’t given it a try myself yet, but the results look really promising, making Freestyle more reasonable alternative to Illustrate! for home users:

So go watch more videos in the aforementioned post and keep an eye on the project on the official development blog. I am really excited for Freestyle – I guess I might be doing my animation one day after all…

Excellent Blender tutorials

Just a brief note to suggest some excellent Blender video tutorials I have recently stumbled upon on YouTube. The videos are very concise, precise and easy to follow (not to mention that the narrator’s voice is appropriately deep, because honestly, squeaking of super3boy in his tutorials is getting on my nerves). They were made by Josh Beck, a technology teacher at iMAK (interactive Media Applications at Krueger) in San Antonio, Texas, for his students.

The tutorials are aimed at the beginners and more proficient Blender users might find them too basic, but they are excellent for getting one’s feet wet with Blender without getting scared of its numerous functions, buttons and menus. Taking the stigma of being hard to learn off Blender is a hard task indeed, but I think if we get more videos like these, we might yet see Blender becoming even more popular.

I have seen a lot of tutorials on Blender, but in my not-so-humble opinion, these are the best entry-level video tutorials available on the web. Click here to see the full list of videos. Thanks a lot, Josh!

Linux cluster from Hell

I am a supporter, user and a fan of free 3D modelling, animating and more software – Blender 3D. Honestly, being a student or a small development house, there is no better option. It’s totally free and has a huge number of features that should be enough for anyone below the level of Pixar. Which means most of the world.

But rendering of 3D scenes is a long process requiring immense processing power and in home conditions we, poor everymen, can only leave our computer for long nights of render… right?

The answer is no, you don’t have to. For a price of a full-blown high-range PC you can have a do-it-yourself Linux cluster with 24 cores and 48Gb of RAM. The name is Helmer, as it comes from hell, obviously. Actually the name comes from IKEA cabinet that the whole cluster is sitting in. Read more on the project webpage on how to make it at home. If I ever become more obsessed with 3D graphics, that’s the way I’m going to do it.

And here are plans for Helmer 2 and 3. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Prebrewed SDK

Having tried coding for PSP (for which I unfortunately do not have time recently), I must say that setting up unofficial PSPSDK under Linux or Cygwin was a pain in the backside, especially if I wanted to have some IDE cooperating with it. All this is annoying to the point where I have started using embedded DSL Linux (via QEMU) under Windows with Toolchain set up in the virtual environment.

Apparently I was not the only one to get this idea. Blake1 from QJ.net development forums made ‘prepackaged’ version of Gentoo with Toolchain and PSPSDK already installed. FOL from PSPUAE has kindly agreed to host the files.

Therefore if you want to start PSP homebrew game development the fastest way possible without too much hassle over the environment setup, download it here and start coding straight away!

Having tried coding for PSP (for which I unfortunately do not have time recently), I must say that setting up unofficial PSPSDK under Linux or Cygwin was a pain in the backside, especially if I wanted to have some IDE cooperating with it. All this is annoying to the point where I have started using embedded DSL Linux (via QEMU) under Windows with Toolchain set up in the virtual environment.

Apparently I was not the only one to get this idea. Blake1 from QJ.net development forums made ‘prepackaged’ version of Gentoo with Toolchain and PSPSDK already installed. FOL from PSPUAE has kindly agreed to host the files.

Therefore if you want to start PSP homebrew game development the fastest way possible without too much hassle over the environment setup, download it here and start coding straight away!

Open Document Format petition

There is a petition to ISO organisation concerning Open Office standards. I highly recommend that anybody even vaguely interested in using office documents signs this :

http://www.noooxml.org/petition

The page after jump explains in more detail why this is important. In short, ODF is the only truly open document format. Microsoft’s arrogance deserves a counteraction. I already signed.

Screen

I work a lot on remote Linux servers, deploying and testing my code. One of the most useful tools I use all the time is screen. Basically, it allows user to have multiple sessions in one console window and it supports resuming these sessions when connection is interrupted. Where it not for screen, I would waste hours of my life setting up things after getting disconnected. Also, if you don’t have Midnight Commander, the ability to have more than one session is also very handy. You can read more about screen here and about handy shortcuts here.

Screen screenshot

One little disadvantage of screen is that if the server is reset, then the user loses all their session information. Nevertheless, there is a trick to speed up a lot setting up new screen session and it’s not something very well documented, so I describe it here.

Basically user needs to edit (or create, if it is not there) the file .screenrc in their home directory so that it contains the commands to be executed in its respective screens (aka sessions). Below you can see my example :

info xterm ti@:te@
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/src/
screen -t XXX_source 0
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/some_server/
screen -t XXX_server_1 1
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/some_other_server/
screen -t XXX_server_2 2
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/vobs/
screen -t XXX_vob 3

What it does is basically create four screens in one screen session – think of them as four tabbed browsing windows. Each of them will be using bash shell (just because I like it) and start in appropriate directory (source dir, where I make my builds, two server paths and one vob directory for version control related stuff). Each XXX_something part is the name of the respective session window (displayed on top of Putty terminal, for example). Simple, neat, and very helpful. Also, the structure of the file is pretty much self-explanatory.

I know it is not a very complicated thing, but it saves a lot of time and therefore I thought I’d bring it to your attention. As always, I look forward to your comments.

Screen

I work a lot on remote Linux servers, deploying and testing my code. One of the most useful tools I use all the time is screen. Basically, it allows user to have multiple sessions in one console window and it supports resuming these sessions when connection is interrupted. Where it not for screen, I would waste hours of my life setting up things after getting disconnected. Also, if you don’t have Midnight Commander, the ability to have more than one session is also very handy. You can read more about screen here and about handy shortcuts here.

Screen screenshot

One little disadvantage of screen is that if the server is reset, then the user loses all their session information. Nevertheless, there is a trick to speed up a lot setting up new screen session and it’s not something very well documented, so I describe it here.

Basically user needs to edit (or create, if it is not there) the file .screenrc in their home directory so that it contains the commands to be executed in its respective screens (aka sessions). Below you can see my example :

info xterm ti@:te@
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/src/
screen -t XXX_source 0
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/some_server/
screen -t XXX_server_1 1
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/some_other_server/
screen -t XXX_server_2 2
shell bash
chdir /somewhere/vobs/
screen -t XXX_vob 3

What it does is basically create four screens in one screen session – think of them as four tabbed browsing windows. Each of them will be using bash shell (just because I like it) and start in appropriate directory (source dir, where I make my builds, two server paths and one vob directory for version control related stuff). Each XXX_something part is the name of the respective session window (displayed on top of Putty terminal, for example). Simple, neat, and very helpful. Also, the structure of the file is pretty much self-explanatory.

I know it is not a very complicated thing, but it saves a lot of time and therefore I thought I’d bring it to your attention. As always, I look forward to your comments.

UBUNTU – Good versus Evil

Brothers and sisters, I have to admit that what I saw today made me lose my speech for a couple of seconds. And this doesn’t happen that often.

I think that if you are visiting my blog from time to time, there is high chance that you know what Ubuntu is (if not, please read more about it here – essentially it is very user-friendly free operating system). As with many programs and systems following the Open-source and Free Software philosophy, Ubuntu comes in different flavours – because everyone is free to take it and modify it.

So, last year I became aware that there is a Christian variant of Ubuntu. I am a practising catholic, but it made me raise my brow a little (“How do you make an operating system Christian?“).

Nevertheless, since it is essentially a version with added Bible study tool and content control software (not to mention nice light theme), I decided it was okay in my book. No crosses on the wallpapers, nothing that would ridicule the idea – I judged it a reasonable project.

However, there are people who didn’t like the idea. Not sure why, but apparently they felt it is necessary to bring back balance to the galaxy, therefore they created… a satanic counterpart. I kid you not: Ubuntu – Satanic Edition.

Basically, it is just a collection of themes, wallpapers and screensavers (have a look at their screenshots gallery). No special program to optimise sacrificing virgins and desecrating churches whatsoever. I find it pretty amusing overall, but the idea itself surprised me at first.

As for others’ reactions, Mark Shuttleworth (the main man behind Ubuntu) commented that “Ubuntu is a broad church“, other nice comments involved waiting for Jehova’s Witness version and my personal favourite “If you gaze long enough into the distro, eventually the distro gazes back at you“.

And so the battle for our souls continues in digital plane as well.

UBUNTU – Good versus Evil

Brothers and sisters, I have to admit that what I saw today made me lose my speech for a couple of seconds. And this doesn’t happen that often.

I think that if you are visiting my blog from time to time, there is high chance that you know what Ubuntu is (if not, please read more about it here – essentially it is very user-friendly free operating system). As with many programs and systems following the Open-source and Free Software philosophy, Ubuntu comes in different flavours – because everyone is free to take it and modify it.

So, last year I became aware that there is a Christian variant of Ubuntu. I am a practising catholic, but it made me raise my brow a little (“How do you make an operating system Christian?“).

Nevertheless, since it is essentially a version with added Bible study tool and content control software (not to mention nice light theme), I decided it was okay in my book. No crosses on the wallpapers, nothing that would ridicule the idea – I judged it a reasonable project.

However, there are people who didn’t like the idea. Not sure why, but apparently they felt it is necessary to bring back balance to the galaxy, therefore they created… a satanic counterpart. I kid you not: Ubuntu – Satanic Edition.

Basically, it is just a collection of themes, wallpapers and screensavers (have a look at their screenshots gallery). No special program to optimise sacrificing virgins and desecrating churches whatsoever. I find it pretty amusing overall, but the idea itself surprised me at first.

As for others’ reactions, Mark Shuttleworth (the main man behind Ubuntu) commented that “Ubuntu is a broad church“, other nice comments involved waiting for Jehova’s Witness version and my personal favourite “If you gaze long enough into the distro, eventually the distro gazes back at you“.

And so the battle for our souls continues in digital plane as well.