Hello all you blog readers, and thanks for stopping by the Nystic blog. Due to work on Nystic 3.0 it doesn’t make much sense to try to get the blog back into working order again. Many and great things are coming soon, so just hold on.
In the meantime I suggest you read and subscribe to my personal site super3.org which will basically the same thing for now(all things Blender, Programming, and Web).
Have a good day!
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If you have not tried Blender 2.5 you should download it right now. The Blender 2.5 Alpha 0 is quite stable, at least in my experience. Blender 2.5 does not have an installer yet( just a .zip), so there is no way it will mess up your current of version of Blender. Trust me. you will not want to go back to Blender 2.49b.
When you first open Blender the changes are quite apparent. The GUI is completely redesigned and it way more efficient once you get the hang of it. It also looks a heck of a lot better, cleaner, and more modern. There is not much of a learning curve for Blender 2.5. Even trying to find where the new stuff is you can work 2x faster.
There were two features I really love about Blender 2.5. The first is the action search. By pressing spacebar in the 3D viewer you can search every possible action in Blender. This is great because you can bevel, subdivide, add objects such as cubes, and the like with way fewer mouse clicks and button presses. It also means you don’t have to search around for buttons to press. The second is the rendering speed increase. A user on the form recorded a six fold increase in rendering speed. So basically something that took a minute to render will now take seconds.
I hope I convinced you to take a look at the new version of Blender. Don’t forget to subscribe if you liked this post.
If you don’t know what FastF12 is please visit this page.
I got a few comments from people that thought the main page of the program was a bit too cluttered. Rather then redesign the thing, I just took the simple and easy way to do it, collapsible form. Surprisingly this is quite easy to do in C#.Net, as it only took me be about 10 minutes to throw together.
For those who are wondering how to do this I will give you a quick rundown. Take note of the height of you current form that you want to make collapsible. Add two buttons: one at the end of of the form, and another right before the text you want to collapse. If you want to start the form collapsed just find the Y value on the form a few pixels below the first button(expand). Set this to the form height like this:
[sourcecode language="csharp"]
private void Main_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
//Collapse Form
this.Height = 315;
}
[/sourcecode]
After that set the expand button to the normal height of the form, and the less button to the collapsed value. Don’t forget to make the make make the expand visible/invisible:
[sourcecode language="csharp"]
private void btnExpand_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//Resize From
btnExpand.Visible = false;
this.Height = 525;
}
private void btnLess_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//Resize From
btnExpand.Visible = true;
this.Height = 315;
}
[/sourcecode]
And that is it! That is all you have to do for a Collapsible .Net Form. See ya in a few days; don’t forget to subscribe.
If you don’t know what FastF12 is please visit this page.
Personally after a while I thought the interface for the first FastF12 was pretty crappy. All the buttons and textboxes where in once space, and it even sometimes confused me(And I’m the one that made the program!). After a bunch of thought the new FastF12 will be a bunch easier to use, and will incorporate a bunch of features the other FastF12 failed to. For example the first version of FastF12 did not save settings, meaning you would have to manually re-enter the settings.
I hope to keep working on it, and keep you guys updated on a daily basis(minus weekends), so don’t forget to subscribe. So far the project is going smoothly, and I am just working on the GUI. The next goal on the list is to finish the two windows(forms) for creating a render job project, where you input the .blend file to be rendered, output folder, ect.I hope to finish those forms over the weekend, and hopefully update you on Monday and/or Tuesday.
Once the basic local rendering features are implemented I will be probably be releasing a semi-functional alpha version of the program for stability testing. There I can troubleshoot any local engine problems, and fix them before I move on to the distributed rendering. After that it will take me some time to implement the account features, and distributed rendering. Once that is finished I will be releasing the program as a closed beta or a limited invite only beta, so I can find any issues, and add any last minute features. Please let me know in the comments if you would like to be part of these testing groups.
As for now, please give me comments and advice on the posted screenshot’s look and feel on this post(Click to expand the screenshot). I am trying to make the interface look as good as possible, and easy to use. You can also give simple features suggestions, and I will take them into consideration. Thanks to all the people that have downloaded the programs so far!
One thing I really love playing is flash games, especially defense shooter games. I constantly check my favorite game websites and studios for the newest games( ArmorGames, XgenStudios, JohnnyTwoShoes, just to name a few ). I’m usally pretty good at these games because of a few little tricks I have picked up over the years.
#1 Save That Gold – Usally most of these games have gun upgrade systems. You start with something simple like a pistol, move on to a machine gun, and the best weapons is usally some kind of rocket laucher or explosive. Many people upgrade there weapon as soon as they have money too get to the next one, and that’s how the games are usally designed. The trick is to save your money and see how many weapons you can skip. This strategy also works in non-defense shooter games.
#2 Reloading is Fun – If there is a second or two pause in thr fight of your current wave make sure you are fully reloaded. This will keep you from getting overun while you are reloading.
#3 First Thing First – Don’t just shoot any enemy that you can put your crosshairs on, establish a priority. Always shoot the bigger and more powerful units first. If you have elimated all the bad guys on the screen, or are just starting the game keep your crosshairs on the left edge where you anticipate enmies. Instead of chasing them down, let them walk into your fire.
I hope these are some helpful tips for flash gamers like me. If you have a cool tip or game then don’t forget to leave it in the comments.
Sorry I have not been posting much, but this year I went to DragonCon 2009. DragonCon is basically the biggest Sci-Fi convention in the world. I got to see Adam Savage from Mythbusters, and many actors from my favorite show, Stargate. I took about 500 photos on my iPhone, I wonder why it ran out of battery, of the parade and I will be showing the best photos from the pool all week. Don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any of the photos.
Stood in Line with Her for a While
Spartans! Tonight we dine in HOOTERS!
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Anyways this is just a taste for now. More to come later.
All my photos fall under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, so feel free to use them as long as you give me some credit or a link back. It would be great if you let me know what you are using it for.
For those of you who have not tried the Blender RPG Series #1 tutorial yet, here is a little preview of what you accomplish in the tutorial. [Courtesy thelolipopman93]
I am officially putting a hold on this project, until some other time. Its been a fun time modeling it up to this point, and I am 100% with the model if you look at it from a top view. I will probably start working on it again in a few months, and try the find out how the heck I am going to texture it. My ultimate goal would be a short fan film, but that would be a long while in the future, and I would need a bunch of help creating models. So that probably is not going to happen. Anyways, here is my work so far:
If you are wondering what the random plains are doing in the image, don’t worry about. I duplicate the plains, then mold them into the surface object I need.
Ugh. The back looks ugly. Right now I am focusing on the front end of the ship, but I will have to remodel the engines sooner or later.
Well, I hope you enjoyed seeing my modeling progress so far. If you have any questions about how I did something or want to see the unfinished .blend file just let me know in the comments. Hopefully I will finish this project before the open model gallery(something I am working on for the new site) is released. Then I will release the .blend for all you to play with, and hopefully improve.
Don’t forget to subscribe via RSS or Email if you liked this post.
Making a game in Blender has been a heavily requested tutorial topic. Now after a few days of planning, the first in the series of tutorials here. This tutorial shows how to UV Map a cube character(nothing too complex), and setup the logic-bricks so he can move around the small plain. You can find all the needed textures, image, and .blend files in the .zip file below:
The next tutorial will cover expanding the world the cube moves around in. In the tutorial the cube had nothing to do, so he simply jumped off the end of the world into the deep abyss. By the end of the next tutorial the cube character will actually have obstacles and things to do. Don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss the next tutorial.
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