Author: Gary Noden

Maya Generalist, Blender Lover, Motion Graphic guy and VFX Compositor when it suits me.

ONE BY ONE: Particle Systems – PART 3 Use Boid Particles for flocking! Plus a bit of BLENDER 3.0!

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I love Blender…

But I’m still a bit confused by the Boids Physics section. Based on the Boids AI system written by Craig Reynolds in 1986 – I know, 1986!! – it is a fight or flight artificial intelligent flocking system. But it’s controls are a bit twitchy to say the least, including a brain system that works as a list from the top down and the fact that you can only set the fuzzy logic side of these en masse, not being able to set the flocking lower or higher than, say, the fight instinct.

That could be better.

Also, and I’m not moaning, but it would be nice if, say, when you are adding a flock of birds to your system, you could add them as a collection of objects that you could loop through, so you could add an animation to them.

I managed to do this in Maya back in 2008 for a 3DWorld Magazine Tutorial – you can see the results here:

https://youtu.be/R-h55CGWrgQ

And the tutorial here:

https://gen-vfx.com/2019/10/23/how-do-i-simulate-a-flock-of-birds

I do mention, whilst doing this tutorial, that there is an add-on (paid) that takes a bit of the mystery out of the setup and offers a lot of choices in the process such as models (birds, insects, butterflies etc) and flight motion (flocking and motion specifically) without all the messy twiddling I got up to in this tutorial.

https://www.blendermarket.com/products/spyderfy-bug-system-add-on I recommend trying it out..

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Modifier Particle Systems – PART 2 Use “keyed” Particles for simple Particle morphing!

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I love Blender…

…and I love talking about the particle system. As this one demonstrates! It’s part 2 of my videos about how to use it, how to take the particles and make them morph across multiple targets and produce some interesting effects.

Hope this helps you get your head around the Keyed particle setting in Blender.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Blender’s Particle System made simple – Part 1

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I love Blender…

You didn’t know that, did you?

You did, oh then you’ll know I like it’s particle system too.

I do find it interesting that it’s a modifier, though. It should have a tab all to itself… Well, actually it does.

The fact that you can apply it as a modifier could be a throwback to an earlier less comprehensive version of the system, because it’s HUGE in terms of content. This video is the first in a short series of films about how to understand and make all sorts of wonderful things with the particle system, covering the basics of getting an emitter to emit directionally, making it emit objects and controlling it with a simple turbulence field.

Stream of objects, here we come! Hope you like it.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

TUTORIAL: Making a beautiful dynamic sky in Blender – Fully Explained!

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I love Blender…

…and it just keeps getting better! The dynamic sky, well, it takes a bit if getting used to if you don’t get it first time. This tutorial takes you from creating the sky to how to edit it and understanding the way to change the sun accurately. Hope you like it.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

TUTORIAL: How to make the Ocean Modifier loop in Blender!

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I love Blender…

No kidding. I think we got that now. And if you are at home making looping videos to throw onto Reddit and Instagram, this one will make you love Blender a little bit more.

After the last one with the Ocean modifier, I wanted to do a looping one.

It’s not a difficult thing to do, but can take a bit to get your head around. Anyway, for all you looping animation peeps, this is the way to make sure you have perfect water that will match as your little animating boat swoops over the waves.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE – Making animating oceans in Blender with the Ocean Modifier

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I love Blender… It’s cracking stuff.

But back in the day, when I only really knew how to use Maya, I loved it’s Ocean shader.

It looked great, it worked great, but you could only preview sections of it in the scene with a funky little preview shape. Roll forwards several years and the Ocean modifier in Blender bares a strong resemblance to the Maya Shader, BUT (yes, it is a Big But. I like Big Buts and I cannot lie…) it is designed so you can see the whole of the surface in the viewport and, even better, you can see it in Eevee working in relative realtime with shading as well.

I still need to find out better ways to use some of the bits (spray should be accessible in the shader editor) but when I sort it, I will let you know.

Hop in, watch through as I go over as much as I possibly can in how to make the best of the Ocean Modifier.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Retopo like a Boss in Blender with the polybuild tool.

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I love Blender… It’s cracking stuff.

It can do almost all the stuff that the big boy 3D software can do plus some of the stuff it can’t do as well. Compositing? Yes, to a certain extent. Video Editing? Yep, that’s not bad and getting better all the time.

Retopologising tools? Oh baby, you betcha!

Like in any 3D software, you need to flag a few things to get the tools top work best. Snap to surface, turn off back faces, but the best part of this is the polybuild tool. Once you’re set up, this tool does exactly what it says. It build polygons. It extrudes single edge, creates polygon triangles and quads at will. Add in the Mesh addon looptools, you can relax, space, and even stretch points in a single line to make surfaces that flow with the smoothness of a ballet dancer. Oooooo, that is smooth!

Here’s a less of a One by One, and more of a Few by Few, covering a bunch of things that will help you in retopologising anything from a car to a weird hippo creature called Beattie… Yep, I said a hippo creature called Beattie.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Rigging like Pixar! Using the surface Deformer in Blender!

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I love Blender…

And as I move ever loser to talking more about rigging – something I do a lot in Maya – I am always looking for ways to improve on the method I know.

Blender’s surface deformer modifier is actually one of the worlds best ways of avoiding difficult rigging, something that the software designers at Pixar thought about when they started to build Marionette, their animation package.

You create a low level cage and this morphs your higher density mesh beneath it and you rig that. Lovely and simple Anyway, here it is, in all it’s Modifier glory.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Everything about quickly making Ripples in Blender with the Wave Deformer!

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I love Blender… And, no surprises, I love everything there is to know about it’s toolset.

Today we are going to be talking about the Wave Deformer. Did you know you can make more than just a wave with it? Its default is to make ripples, which is great, but did you know it can also make a shockwave effect using a single ripple and adding a texture to it?

Really, it’s sooo useful. Anyway, enough of me. Enjoy the modifier and replicate it yourself.

Take a look at the video below to find out more. Better still, subscribe to the channel and you’ll see a new one of these every week. Sometimes a “One by One” where we talk about what each part of blender does – at the moment we are concentrating on modifiers – other times tutorials on specific things or quick tips to make your life easier.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.

ONE BY ONE: Secrets to making perfect displacement maps and using them in Eevee and in Cycles!

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I love Displacements in Blender!

How about that for a switch! Making changes? It must be a Thursday!

But don’t worry, I still love Blender.

And I love the two different ways to make displacements in blender. The Displace Modifier is a lot more powerful that people give it credit for and, of course, you can view it in the viewport. The power of Eevee. But the old “experimental” way of doing it at render time is still pretty smart. In this one by one we start off in Krita explaining the right way to make a displacement map, then use it in both Eevee and Cycles to find out which is better. It’s a close call!

Anyway, onto the good stuff”

Take a look at the video below to find out more. Better still, subscribe to the channel and you’ll see a new one of these every week. Sometimes a “One by One” where we talk about what each part of blender does – at the moment we are concentrating on modifiers – other times tutorials on specific things or quick tips to make your life easier.

You want to see something not here? Then let me know in the comments. I’m always keen to help out where I can.

Take care and stay safe.