And We’re Back
Well, we’re getting started again.
We have a meeting today after school (9/23/10), and I will your help to make sure this program is able to continue on.
I have very little time, and as a group we have only the dues that I’ve collected from two people. Many of the challenges that I issue can be done for free or nearly free.
Here are the two challenges:
3 pictures – Take and bring three pictures that tell a story
15 second film – Take a 15 second film that tells a story.
Each of these that are done will be shared with the group next week.
Next meeting, Thursday
Hello everyone, our next meeting will be Thursday. There are a couple of very cool ideas that I’m kicking around, and I’m excited to share them with you.
Let’s just say that I’ve been doing a lot of reading about independent film making and research about Blender’s potential role in a production company’s pipeline. (Check out the film “Project London” ). Right now, however, this idea will have to wait until I get a couple of additional supplies. 
Depending on the arrival of some items that I’ve purchased, we may be wraping up the game engine discussion that I started last week.
Next Meeting and Film Riot
Well, we’re back from break and I’m assuming that everyone has settled down with their new video games, movies, and/or other distractions; thus forgetting about the 125 project…
At least for a little while…
Our next meeting will be Thursday Jan 14th after school. Please bring your signed Agreement Page (see documents section) and your $5.00 for yearly dues.
I ran across this little independent project called Film Riot through Revision 3. Basically these two brothers create short skits and explain how to do special effects using Adobe After Effects. With a little bit of research, I also believe that it’s possible to do many of their special effects using Blender. This means that I will be trying to learn some of the film editing abilities of Blender in the very near future in order to share these with you. I’ll keep you updated as I progress.
The address for Film Riot is: http://revision3.com/filmriot
Hopefully this provides a little bit of inspiration for you… I know that it certainly has for me.
See you next week.
Blender Game Engine
I spent some time this weekend trying to figure out the Blender game engine for the purpose of writing a tutorial for our group. I was able to construct a simple maze and create a walk through in first person view. If anyone is interested, stop by the classroom before break and I’ll give a quick demo and explanation.
Heart Beat Tutorial
There is a meeting today (12-17-09) after school. I’m planning on letting people work on their own with a tutorial, and ask questions. I’ve spent time working on a tutorial to model a heart and animate it using a lattice modifier. Unfortunately, the tutorial is not complete through the animation phase, however, I do have 16 pages typed of modeling the heart, and attaching a Lattice modifier, plus using that lattice to scale the object. I’m hoping that I can finish this tutorial over break.
The tutorial up to this point can be found below:
Heart Beat Tutorial (No animation)
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.
My goal is that by the end of the tutorial (when I finish it) you should have something like the gif below:
Next Meeting (12/17/09)
Our next meeting will be after school on Thursday (12/17/09). I’ve been asked by a couple of students for resources for projects that they wish to pursue.
So, Here we go:
You can find a ton of information on both Youtube and Vimeo. Vimeo even has a Blender Tutorial Channel, which I highly recommend.
As for books:
I’m a big fan of anything by Tony Mullens:
Mastering Blender, Bounce Tumble and Splash, and Character Animation with Blender
There is also a Blender Essential Book, that I would recommend for a basic understanding of the program.
As for Websites:
Blender Home Website – Direct site to the Blender Manual, plus where I go to find links on Blender Nation. This site is also the hub to get to the various Blender Foundation projects like Big Buck Bunny, Yo Frankie, and the Durian Project.
Blender Nation – Home for my Blender News. Normally this site has information about current projects and tutorials, as well as programs that play well with Blender.
Blender Forum (Blender Artists) – A great place to search for help, interact with the community, and participate in the overall growth and discussion of Blender.
The Process Diary – This site follows a very talented Blender Users process of character and story creation. He also has a set of podcasts which I highly recommend.
Blender Guru – Another great site for current answers tutorials for Blender material.
I’ll post more links when I get a chance…
When I get an opportunity, I will go back and add direct links to this information, but right now, I’m just trying to update the page.
(Links Updated)
Finally, there have been a couple of students wanting to start work on their own portfolio. If anyone is interest in trying to start some sort of project with a group of students, please see me. I’ll check out the interest, and we’ll try to get something together, and if nothing else (depending on time) I will try to work as a “technical adviser.”
Yay 33!
For a brand new club at a school, the number 33 is a very impressive number. There were 33 students in attendance at today’s meeting. I tried to walk through a tutorial that I wrote for absolute beginners. We didn’t have enough time to finish the tutorial, but it was at least a start.
For people working on their own:
First, it’s very important that you use a three button mouse. You can use other input devices, however, it will make working with Blender more difficult than necessary.
Second, I will try and post some links to sites that I go to for information as well as resources that can be purchased that I use when I’m trying to figure out how to do something.
I cannot promise that this will be accomplished tonight, I need to wait for my children to go to sleep.
I’m thrilled to have such interest in this project…
33
Meeting Date
Our next meeting will be our first meeting that we will focus on learning the programs.
We will meet Thursday December 3rd after school in the Tech Ed computer lab.
I will be using this site to post the topics of discussion and document our progress and ideas.
So it begins…
After kicking around the idea to start the 125 project for a couple of years now, as of Thursday, it has officially begun. We held our first meeting after school and had almost 30 students in attendance. This is both great news and creates an interesting challenge of trying to figure out the logistics of teaching these programs to such a large group in an after school setting. The additional difficulty is the hardware limitations that exist in many of the computer labs in the school. The lab that has the ability to handle Blender and the other programs that I will be using only has about 20 computers. Our newest difficulty will be scheduling.
I think that the first educational resource will be the free e-book found here:
I will post the informational documentation handed out at the meeting later.
Welcome to the 125 Project
Welcome to The 125 Project.
We are walking towards the end of the first stretch of the first quarter of this academic year. I have been kicking around an idea in my head of a project that I would like to undertake for some time now. I’ve pushed it off, pushed it off, and yet again pushed it off. However recent events in my life have made it important for me to stop pushing things off and start working on achieving the ideas that bounce around in my head. So… It begins.
Anyway, my idea… I want to start a Computer Graphics and Animation Club that utilizes Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). In particular, I’m planning on teaching students Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape. If nothing else, we’ll start with the basics and move forward from there. The other hope for this site is just to host documentation for this project as well as post tutorials and links for students for next year.
Right now as I think about it, this seems like a rather large (and somewhat daunting) undertaking, especially since I have no budget, no support (except for the various communities that support the FOSS programs), and little idea of how to make this all work. So if nothing else, my attempts may provide opportunities for humor.
Well, wish me luck, I’ll keep you posted as I progress.
M. Gessford
