Jay Versluis

3D Shenanigans - Blender Splash Screen

Pimp your Blender installation with this stylish 3D Shenanigans Splash Screen! This Patreon exclusive goodie is super easy to use: 

• unZIP the attached file
• copy the containing folder (3D_Shenanigans) into /version/scripts/startup/bl_app_templates_system
• start Blender and you can pick 3D Shenanigans as a new file

For extra credit, you can add the following to your Blender shortcut icon so the Splash loads by default (after the Blender launch comma...

Pimp Your Stream: Dancing FBI Agent and Supporter Animations

Supporters1.blend = Blender File to study what I did and easy amendments: the small transparent version of the Dancing FBI Agent, and the subtle Supporter Crawl for the top of my stream overlay. Feel free to use them in any of your projects. I've included the video files and a license.

Inspired by DreamLab Studios, I may develop more of these and refine the process. If you have any ideas on how to market such stream overlays (be that a marketplace for s...

How to clear old/stale Blender Bookmarks

In this episode I'll show you how to remove those stale greyed out Blender Bookmarks that are left under the Favourites menu, when a folder is no longer available on the hard drive. I like setting those up and quick entry points for my projects, but oftentimes I then delete that folder or move it, and when I do, there's no way to remove such things from the Blender interface.   

Thanks to a tip from 2020-03-11 17:03:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Using Mixamo Animations with Synty Characters in Blender

In this episode I'll show you how to add Mixamo animations to a Synty character with Blender. It's a rather complex process that involves importing the Synty FBX into Blender, fixing it, exporting it with special settings, and then importing it into Mixamo. 

I have some written instructions on the whole process here.

The description may need a tweak, and I need to come up with a snazzy thumbnail, but the editing is done. I'll release it someti...

Introduction Bloopers

I don't write scripts. I usually have an idea of what I'd like to do or talk about, and then I'll do it until I'm happy with an approximation of my vision. Here's how this worked with the intro to my Streaming 101 series. 

This is essentially every take I did, with both technical and verbal glitches. You can never predict what happens in public places. While it's funny, and back in the day perhaps considered a "DVD Extra", I thought it gives an interesting insight into my creative ...

Streaming 108: Going Live

In this episode I'll explain how to go live with OBS for the first time. This involves picking your streaming provider, and either connecting your account or adding your stream key. I'll also show you how to run a bandwidth test in Twitch and explain what to look out for in OBS for a smooth streaming experience (i.e. those little messages at the bottom right).

The edit is ready, all I need to add here is the music bed. I'm working my day job for the next two days, after which I'll conti...

Countdown Clock Asset

This is a clean countdown clock I've made in Premiere Pro. It's a tad tricky to setup, so I thought I'd share this asset with you. Feel free to use it commercially. It's a handy tool when you're streaming, as it tells your audience if they have time to grab a coffee or - if they're watching a recording of your stream - how far they need to fast forward.

This clock works best when you add it above another source in OBS, static or moving. To make the background key through, add a Color Ke...

Streaming 107: Bit Rate and Stream Quality

This is a tech heavy episode with tons of info I'm afraid, but I'll go into the whole topic of how and why you'll arrive at your bitrate. We need to understand the connection between canvas size, image size, frame rate, our video encoder and the bit rate. We also need to find out what your individual bit rate is before we can go live - and all of these things will be discussed in this episode.

Currently it's without the music bed, but I thought I'll give you the edit nonetheless. I'll u...

Streaming 106: Switching Scenes with Shortcut Keys and Stream Deck

In this episode I'll explain how we can switch scenes in OBS without using the graphical user interface. In the heat of the moment, we need buttons like in a real TV studio. That's especially useful when OBS is minimized and we can't access it with a mouse.

There are two ways to deal with this: we can either define our own shortcut keys in OBS, or we can use a magic device called the Elgato Stream Deck. That's a USB (or iOS) gadget with buttons that are separate from your keyboard. I'll...

Urban Future 7 Animation - Scene Files

As promised, here are the DAZ Studio Scene Files I've made during tonight's live stream. As long as you have the Urban Future 7 set installed, this should load fine. Tomorrow we'll add the logo that Christina made, and hopefully we'll see an animatic during the session too.

PS: Seconds after the stream was over, I remembered how to make the Sun and Sky appear with scene lights: simply by removing the HDRI. 

UPDATE: Added v5-v7 to this post. Notice that some keyframes have not...

Streaming 105: Audio Compression, Noise Reduction and Sidechain Ducking

This is a slightly advanced topic I wanted to include to get you started with some basic understanding on how you make yourself sound the best. I'll explain how to apply audio filters for voice compression and noise reduction, as well as how to auto-dim your game audio when you speak, a technique called Sidechain Ducking.

I was debating whether to bring this up slightly later in the series, in favour of getting everyone up and running with their first stream earlier (and subtract confus...

Streaming 104: Capturing Sound and Audio Monitoring

In this episode I'll explain all aspects of audio: how to capture it in various ways, both from your Desktop and your microphone, how to monitor it, and how not to monitor it. I'll touch on the Windows Default device and tell you why it's a bad idea to use it in OBS.

I'm trying to make the audio sound a little better, this is my first attempt to get the best out of my tools. There's some roughness at the end where I'm fading up the music a bit too quickly, but I'll fix that tomorrow.&nb...

Streaming 103: Capturing Desktop and Game Sources

In this episode I’ll explain how to capture anything that happens on your monitor, or a single application like a game. I’ll also show you how to nest a scene onto another scene, something that can speed up your workflow if you have a lot of sources.

Don’t judge it by the thumbnail, I’m still working on those 😂

I’m off tomorrow, so episodes 4+5 should follow along in the afternoon.

Streaming 102: Web Cams and Layers in OBS

In this episode I’m explaining how to stack layers and make various sources appear in the same time in one scene. I’ll add my webcam and transparent text over lays from a PNG, and I’ll show you how to use the built-in text tool in OBS.

It took a little longer for me to post these episodes, here’s why: I’m recording them with Camtasia, which doesn’t have the best audio processing. So after editing, I’m exporting the voice track to Premiere, then add it back to Camtasia for ...

Streaming 101: Introduction to OBS

Here’s an early access peek at a new series I’m working on. I’d like to call it Streaming 101. In it I’ll cover not only the OBS software, and how to start your first stream, but also many of the peripheral aspects like subscriber overlays, chat bots, differences between YouTube and Twitch/Mixer.

Essentially I’ll sum up what I’ve learned from a whole years worth of experience in the World of Streaming.

I have 5 episodes ready and edited, but I anticip...

OBS Logo Animation - Scene Files

Here are the scene files from today's stream about the OBS Logo. It's the latest version of the .blend file - feel free to dissect and play with it. 

I'm planning on releasing some of the episodes next week, with some early access here on Patreon. I've edited almost three episodes, recorded 5 so far, and I'm hoping to finish recording the rest tomorrow before my day job starts again (although I can polish some bits in editing during that time).

2020-02-08 00:30:20 +0000 UTC View Post

TwitchFX - Blender Scene Files

As promised earlier, here are the scene files I was generating in today's stream. You can watch it here (until it auto-expires in two months). 

The Text FX add-on I was using is a tad tricky to install. Rather than downloading the file and adding the whole ZIP package to Blender as usual, you have to unZIP the package, then copy TextFX.py manually into your Blender installation's scripts/addons directory...

Fixing that "JPG as JFIF" issue with the Registry Editor in Windows

I wasn't sure about the title of this video. It's one of those issues that when you have it, it's difficult to type into Google and find an answer to. Let me know if you have any suggestions, I'll put this live in a day or two.

In this episode I'll show you how to fix an annoying Windows issue that  shows the JFIF file type being associated with JPG images. Some service  on my system keeps changing this every so often, so I'm using the  Registry Editor to fix the trouble....

Duplicating Objects with a Keyboard Shortcut in DAZ Studio

This is a new segment on my channel for viewer questions I get that are answered easier as a video than as a text comment. Let me know if you like this format. I might do those without the web cam in the future, it’ll look better when I record them after hours.

I had prepared a nice thumbnail earlier, but then had to rush off to work. Creative Cloud did not sync my files of course, so I don’t have it here with me on my phone. Instead, you’ll get an early access perk until I’m ba...

DAZ Studio 117 - Global Illumination, Environment Lighting, IBL and HDRI explained

In this episode I'll tell you much of what I know about the Environment Lighting in DAZ Studio. This technique is also known as Global Illumination. I'll explain the meanings of such cryptic abbreviations as IBL and HDRI, and how all these pieces fall together to make your scenes look handsome.

This is a continuation of the previous episode about Mesh Lights. If you haven't already, you can watch it here.

2019-12-20 13:49:21 +0000 UTC View Post

MARIJUANA: Medicine or not? - Dr. Mike Cusnir

I've finished uploading most of the videos to my new Super Survivor Channel. Right now I'm adding the thumbnails and metadata, creating the audio podcast files and tweaking the website. It's a ton of work, but absolutely worth it! The channel artwork is already up, take a look at it here.

While I'm doing all this, I wanted to share an early access perk with you...

Super Survivor Title Compilation

I've been meaning to put some quick titles together for my Super Survivor channel. Quick being the operative word here, so instead of using 3D graphics, I had a look through the Premiere Pro Templates that come as part of Adobe Stock. I was this close to purchasing one, but Adobe's servers were experiencing an issue and I opted for this one. It's called Bold Wavy Text, it's free, and I started fiddling with the options. I adjusted the text, added various colour schemes and before I knew it (r...

Remembering my Casio EXILIM EX-Z100 - High-Tech from 2008

A couple of things going on here, so bear with me while I explain more about this post, and this video.

I've ordered a new GoPro camera for some upcoming in-person interviews I'd like to shoot. I'll go into more detail on that in a separate post very soon. I had my eye on the new HERO 8 camera with extremely good video stabilisation, but thought that $400 is borderline extortion. Lucky for me, GoPro have a deal in that I could send them any old digital camera if its retail price was in ...

DAZ Studio - Light Starter Kit

This scene will give you a ready-to-render soft light effect akin to that used by studious portrait photographers. Great for quick renders that are more about the character than about the background. Feel free to tweak them to your liking.e your character up with.

This scene will give you a ready-to-render soft light effect akin to that used by stuidos portrait photographers. Great for quick renders that are more about the character than about the background. Feel free to tweak them to ...

DAZ Studio 116: Mesh Lights

In this episode I'll explain the basics of using Mesh Lights. Those are surface properties that can make any object emit light. I'll show you how to set this up, how to adjust it and how to make it invisible so you can shoot through it. I'll also throw in some random anecdotes about surface normals and "Shaders vs Material Presets". I hope you like it!

I'll put  this live in the next few days, but I'll have to post that Mesh Light Starter kit I've referenced in the video first. Enj...

How to Pause Recordings in OBS 24

In this episode I'll show you how to temporarily pause your recordings in OBS. This is a new feature in OBS 24 and it's not immediately obvious how to get it going. Let me show you how in this quick tip.

Enjoy!

Creating IK Chains between two figures in DAZ Studio

In this episode I'll show you how to setup an IK Chain Link between two figures in DAZ Studio 4.12. Specifically, I have two characters holding hands, and I'm creating a handle that will let me move both hands at the same time.

This is a new feature in DAZ Studio 4.12 and it's not available in 4.11 or lower. Previously, IK Chains could only be setup inside a rigged figure, but not between two arbitrary figures in the same scene. Also, this trick does not work between a rigged...

My First Ever Unreal Engine Test

I found myself with some spontaneous free time on my hands today, and tried out the Unreal Engine.  I've been meaning to test it out for a while, but never had the chance. Here's my first ever test, and I wanted to share it with you.  

What can I tell you... it's... unreal! I've made this animation by following Paul Kind's wonderful tutorial "Your First Hour with UE4", available from here. 2019-09-17 00:48:58 +0000 UTC View Post

The Hurricane is coming (again)

As I'm cycling to work in blissful sunshine, I'm reminiscing about Hurricane Irma that surprised us in 2017, and how the experience has left me rather calm now that Dorian is threatening to knock on our door this year. 

I'm talking about how I've offered two total strangers a Lyft ride yesterday, how customers are crazily bulk-buying to prepare for the immanent catastrophe, about over-the-top air con settings, and in the middle of all that, the weather changes dramatical...

Obduction Loops (Waterfall and Hammock)

I've made two mesmerising video loops from the OBDUCTION game: I've made short GIFs that run at 15fps and last a few seconds, as well as HD versions at 1920x1080 at 60fps. They look great as a relaxing loop on a second monitor on repeat, or give a bit of panache to your next social media post.

The videos are too large to upload here, so I've added them to my Vimeo account. You ...