IanHubert

Thoughts on Optimizing Your Cycles Renders

[This is written specifically for Blender's "Cycles" path tracer, but I assume a lot of the same logic applies to other path tracers? Also, I mention below, but if you have a render with crazy fireflies, feel free to post a link in a comment, and maybe we can identify the problem area]

Hey hey! So- I keep seeing folks using the Cycles path-tracer with, like, 2,000-3,000 samples (or more??), and personally I rarely  go over 200 or so, and while there's nothing wrong with making sur...

Texture Paint Street-Markings in Blender

(Right click, save as- preview below)
Road Textures

This is a simple technique, I just also get distracted with tweaking the shader (although, the part at 22 minutes about making the different symbols/graphics could be kind of fun if you don't normally use Blender in that capacity?)

ALSO! The bit at 9:10 is important! I probably don't talk about saving enough, but blender will often...

Asset: 33 Low Poly Crowd Figures

Low poly crowd figures as a dime a dozen online, but almost none of them seem to have any textures??

This is mostly just a test from this evening (version 1), but it gave some handy results until I can do better. Ideally this would be done with more than 3 people, but! Quarantine! What'ch'a gonna do?

Thanks as always to Sean and Kaitlin for being very accommodating models :D

I'm ...

HyperBole Engine Crash - Narrated Screencapture

Jet Engine asset available below if anyone wants!

Here we go again! Sorry to everyone who got a notification email about this post last night- I forgot that deleting the post would create Infinite Confusion. The techniques in this video are pretty darn basic (straightforward physics sim, shape keys, particle system), so I felt bad having a 40 minute video of me just tweaking physics and creating particle systems, but re-creating it more efficiently was proving to be a major ti...

That Greenscreen Tutorial (Finally)

Okay! Sorry I've been quiet the past while! I was forcing myself to wrap up this guy! Only took me 6 months, but here we go!

I ended up not including a ton of things I probably could have, but I wanted it to get people jazzed at the thought of doing something like this, and I felt like including a bunch of additional hotkeys/options might be a bit overwhelming. I think this is a fairly happy medium??

Thanks again for all the support, you guys :D Let me know if you have any que...

A quick Grocery Store and Rando-Building using fSpy

I guess the title shouldn't necessarily be "using fSpy", since the fSpy part is only like 4% of the total process, and the rest is in Blender, but it's a great way to get the camera aligned to a photo, and makes the rest of the process way easier, since once you have it lined up, you can just extrude faces out along the various axis!

If you have an image of a building (or an interior), and aren't sure how to start modeling it, fSpy is just a really great way to get started.

You ...

Hairbrained Virtual Production Schemes

Just some stuff I've been thinking about! I have all these shoots I want to do, but we're still probably a ways off until I can do a proper one (Covid-wise).

I dig the potential, though. In some capacities I think it could totally work (in terms of projecting different views on different places, rendered in realtime in eevee), but it still might be trickier than I think (ex: I can use a white wall as a projection surface, but then I might not get great contrast??)

Still though...

Making a Shot pt3: Detailing

Previous Parts:
Part 1:  tracking/keying/masking/setup
Part 2: Lighting

("Deleted Scene": Making the Hallway)

...

Retargeting Mocap (and lil' dude)

Woooo!!!! I wish I had this thing months ago!

Here's a link to the free 2020-07-16 23:00:22 +0000 UTC View Post

Tutorial/Asset: Getting Neoclassical

This is one of my favorite types of modeling, tons of extruding and insetting!

Maybe not technically a tutorial, since it's just me talking as I do stuff- but maybe some useful tips in there for cylindrical/spherical workflows?

I got the inverted-profile bevel trick from a YouTube video, but I can't find it now :/

Here's the dome I make in the video if you want to use it for anything:
(Right click save-as)
2020-07-12 00:34:27 +0000 UTC View Post

Asset: BROIL restaurant

Zachary asked if I could upload this, so here we go! A lot of it you already have (pipes-n-burgers), but maybe it's nice to have it all assembled like this :) And the lighting fixture could be useful!  I had to recreate a couple textures that I probably didn't have permission to be sharing (not the Taco Bell menu, though. That stays) but it should still render the same.  

I'm not sur...

Timelapse: Modeling the BROIL restaurant

Hey hey!! I've been working on a bunch of stuff, but gotten a little behind on posting about it here. Mostly working on editing for the Dynamo Dream episode. I'm SO close to picture lock, and once the edit's locked I can send it off to the sound team :D  Editing is hard, though. I'm kind of having to "find the scene" in the edit, which it turns out is a thing I don't enjoy at all. Okay well maybe a little. But I much prefer having the edit in my head before we even shoot the sce...

Asset: 13 Photoscanned/Rigged Characters

[edit: cleaned up a bunch of the models since upload (weird little geometry bumps and such). Super easy to do with the sculpt tool!]

Woooo! You guys would not believe how much time I've spent on this over the last 6 months. I'm excited :D  

It took a ton of trial and error (so so so many wrong turns) but I finally have the workflow figured out, and I can actually generate these pretty quick now.  

The video explains how to hook them up with animation data...

Asset: Big Mossy Rocks

So I make lots of cyberpunk work, and maybe you join the patreon like "yeah alright let's cyber-go" and instead I just do nature photoscans forever- but hot damn sometimes you how to follow your momentum (Alsoooo look an appreciation of nature's shenanigans is going to legit help your cyberpunk sensibilities (look at the vine distribution in 2020-07-03 03:24:41 +0000 UTC View Post

FutureProof Studios Tour

Hey! I wanted to share a bit of what you all are helping support by being here!! Pardon all the messes! 

Environmental Graphics in Blender Timelapse

At some point I'd love to make an Actual Tutorial with some techniques I find the most helpful (I have a project in mind that could be pretty fun, I think), but until then here's a timelapse of putting a couple graphics together- I recommend scrubbing around to any bits you might be interested in. Graphic Design is like a whole friggin' craft with a whole friggin' skill set- a skillset I don't really possess. But if I can make something that isn't Distractingly Bad that I can use to fill out ...

Asset/Screencap: Waterfall River

So not really a tut- just a screencapture, really, but this is one of those things I've been thinking about for like literally 5-10 years and finally decided to try- worked out better than I expected! It's nice that flowing water's fairly random looking.

Here's the waterfall texture video if you want to use it for anything! You can watch the video, but I ended up using these settings. You cou...