Blender 3d Computer Case Model

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

In my recent post, Blender 3d: Render 1 Image Simultaneously On 2 Computers, I've made a model of a computer case in Blender 3d. It is modeled after a Soldam Windy Cube casing, a very high end casing from a Japan manufacturer.

As I could not find any download-able 3d computer case on Google, I thought it would be a courtesy to upload mine for downloads. You can download the Blender 3d file (.blend) for this model here: casing.zip (364 kb)

However, please note that I did not model the insides of the casing and the back of it. As my initial purpose for it was to show the casing from the front, modeling those parts will take up lots of extra effort.
Labels: Blender 3d

posted by text21 @ 2:56 AM : Go to top

My Rig Revamped

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Hi again! I'm back after a few days of no internet.
It was no accident, the internet was not down.
I was revamping my computer, which is also the very computer used to make this blog.

Let me share some pictures of the end result.

Side panel removed.

With the side panel.

The wires... Bent and hidden. My fingers are all bruised by bending them.

What's upgraded:

Hardisk - WD Raptor 74Gb -> WD Velociraptor
Motherboard - DFI Bloodiron -> DFI Lanparty JR (Coolest looking matx)
Casing - Coolermaster 330 -> Coolermaster 340
Graphics Card - Nvidia 8600gts -> XFX Nvidia 9600gt Zalman limited edition
Power Supply - OCZ 500W StealthXStream -> Aerocool 750W
Looks - Looks much cooler than the old version

What's downgraded:

CPU Overclock Speed - 3.45 GHz -> 3.00 Ghz (The new motherboard is not very suitable for my CPU)
Ram Overclock Speed - 1151 mhz -> 1008 mhz (Ram speed is linked to cpu speed)
My Fingers - Suffered lots of cuts
Temperatures - From 75 C max -> 63 C max

If you want to see some really cool systems that put mine to shame, you can visit: http://www.million-dollar-pc.com/
Those people there are really skilled and rich.
Labels: Miscancellous

posted by text21 @ 7:42 PM : Go to top

Merry Christmas

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Before we know it, another year has almost passed and now its already Christmas eve again. We want to wish you and all readers alike a merry christmas.

I didn't really have the time to make a real 3d picture of a Christmas scene. Anyway, here's a very cool looking one made in Blender 3d: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=84671

May joy and peace be with you all year. =)
Labels: Miscancellous

posted by text21 @ 6:01 AM : Go to top

Blender 3d: Render 1 Image Simultaneously On 2 Computers

Thursday, December 18, 2008

You might have heard of a 3d render farm. It is when 2 or more computers are pit together to render a 3d animation. If there are 2 computers for a 200 frame animation, computer A will render frames 1-100, and computer B will render frames 101-200. Then, the frames are all put together to form a single animation.

Blender 3d Render Farm, Budget mini 3d Render Farm, Blender Tricks and Hacks, parallel processing, parallel rendering, blender multi core benifits

Recently, Blender 3d has allowed parallel rendering on a multi core computer. This has greatly improved render times among many users out there. But sometimes, even one bad-ass, ultra overclocked quad core computer many not be enough! This is especially so for some detailed models with lots of polygons and ray-tracing materials. So, why not 2 or more?

However, blender doesn't have a function that allows users to split up the workload easily. Most users out there are trapped with a single computer. Luckily, there IS a way out. Here, I will teach you the trick that many Blender users have overlooked.

The Concept: Spliting Renders Then Combining Them Back

Blender renders images pixel by pixel. For every pixel, it calculates the color of the point in the 3d model that is represented by it. When functions like ray tracing is used, complex calculations to are needed trace the path of light rays to find the exact color.

The main idea of this tutorial is to fill up some of these pixels with pixels that take negligible time to render, then make a few copies with different parts blanked out. All these copies are rendered in separate machines then combined back together to form 1 render.

For this tutorial, I will be using a 3d file that I've made sometime ago. Because it heavily utilizes ray tracing, it took my computer about 34 minutes to render it alone. For this tutorial, I will be using 2 computers to render. The first one will be my own Q6600 quad core machine, and the 2nd one will be my friend's machine with the same processor.

This Is The 3d Model Being Used

The Steps:

Firstly, open up the .blend file you really want to render on two computers. You should see the stage of your design. Of course, it will be different from the picture below.

Press number pad 7 to go to top view.

Zoom in onto the active camera. (You can use the Ctrl+numberpad arrows and your mouse's scroller to shift your view and zoom in into there) Then, click on somewhere, very near the front of the camera and in the middle of the camera's view. (Similar to the picture above)

Your crosshair will go to the spot you click. This is so that any mesh we create will spawn from that spot.

Next, go to side view by click on 3. Click on somewhere in the middle of the camera's view to set the crosshair there.

Next, go to the camera view. View -> Camera.

We have to make something to block the camera's view. With the crosshair intact, create a new plane. Press "Space" on your keyboard, then go to Add -> Mesh -> Plane.

There should be a new plane in your 3d view. You may want to resize it a bit smaller or bigger, so that it is easier to handle and drag. To resize, press "R" on your keyboard.

But, no matter what size it is, one of the sides of the plane must be longer than one of the sides of the camera. For this case, since it is a horizontal image, the height of the plane should be longer than the height of the camera's view.

Drag the plane to the left, so that one of the sides almost meet the vertical line of the crosshair. Since it is being dragged left, the right edge should not cross over the vertical line. A bit to the right is ok, but not to the left where it crosses over.

Then we have to give the plane a good material that won't be calculated in the blender render, yet effective to block half of the image when rendering. Firstly, make it black. The darkest Black.

Then, we have to make the material have no reflections, no shadow, no shade and completely unaffecting the surroundings. It is just to block the view Drag the "Ref", "Spec", "Hard", "Amb", "Emit", "SBias" to the lowest setting.

Deselect "Radio", "Traceable", "Shadbuf", "Shadow", "TraShadow".

Save your file. (Ctrl+W) Don't worry if you want to revert things back to the original again. You just have to delete the plane in front of the camera to do that.

Make a copy of the .blend file. Then, transfer this copy to another computer which you want to use for rendering simultaneously.

Open up the copy in the other computer. While still in the camera view, drag the plane to the right, so that its left edge is just.. a bit to the right of the crosshair. You are almost ready to render. But hold on... its always better to save this copy before you do that, as blender may hang while rendering.

Ready, set, go! Render!

With two similar computers, it took a total of 19 minutes to render. Slightly more than 1/2 of the original time (34 minutes with my computer alone). But definitely a huge improvement!

Once you have finished, you can save the renders (F3 for shortcut). Then, you can combine them together using your any image editor!
Labels: Blender 3d

posted by text21 @ 3:07 AM : Go to top

Obstacles Of A Graphic Designer

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Firstly, I would like to mention that I am still a student. Not some full time professional graphic designer. All the views may not be accurate on a larger aspect, but they may still be worth contemplating.

Like many designers out there, I have been though tough times.

Critics

Remember the times when you work so hard on an assignment, a project,
thinking that you have done your best and everything you could?
You want it to impress others,
and even your friends think that it is really good,
but you face harsh critics from your teacher.

"You got to work on it a lot. You current standard is below-average."
"I don't think this works."
"You are just a student. I have many years proper experience to judge."
"It sucks."
"Others are much better than you."
"I can only give you a C-grade at most."

As a designer, these are the comments I get when I post things on forums and show my artwork to others.

"This image does not look good."
"Nice try, but it looks bad."
"The.. blah blah blah needs to be improved upon. It really looks crappy like this."
"Your photoshop skills are not good. You should have done this this this..." (i don't use photoshop)

I know its always good to listen to constructive criticism. But... not from people who are not with the same artistic taste as you. A rock music critic must not judge a classic violin piece.

So, whenever I see an artwork which I don't really like, I would put my self in the artist's shoes and see things his/her way. This in turn gives me a whole new perspective that enlightens my mind... the perspective of the other artist. I will be thinking things like...

"What is it that he wants to achieve in this artwork, that I do not like?"
"Did he put a lot of effort into it?"
"What are the emotions of the artist that spurs him through these process of creating the artwork?"

Sterotyping

Every one goes through education for two purposes. One is to learn.
But in our superficial society, such "learning" principles are antiques of the past.

It is the certificates.

Have you ever seen a job application that suits you? You know it is your niche, its your line of work. But it only accepts degree holders.

But, to get a degree, you have to do things that are not related to your job. Junior colleges are one of such things in my country. We learn general things like maths, economics, etc. But what many of the people there wish to do in the future aren't really taught in those subjects.
It can be though of as learning how to analyze the economy if you want to get a job as a computer programmer.
(Well, even if there is some meaning to it, these subjects are founded by people who are flawed in the subjects themselves? If economics is perfect as a taught subject, there wouldn't be a wall street crash.)

Also, as posted in my previous post on stereotyping in graphic design, many big companies out there seek people who are good in certain programs, and not others, even both programs does the same. Examples include autocad and 3dmax, paint shop pro and photoshop, flash and illustrator.

Pay Gets Smaller

Sometimes, digital artists are not the respected ones in the country. They are thought of as lower class jobs. Programmers are poorly paid compared to the early days of computers. Website designers and other designers are poorly paid. (I've heard this from some forum friends in this field) Some people say its the massive horde of cheap labor coming from China and India.

Well, I can't do much about this. But nevertheless, let us not give up our passions despite the lack of potential for a "real job".

Anyway, since I'm still a student, there seems to be no need for me to get stressed up about it. Still, it really feels terrible when you discover that your money making interest isn't really that money making after all!
Labels: Rants

posted by text21 @ 3:30 PM : Go to top

Some Pixel Fonts

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Pixel fonts are awfully useful in graphic design. They are able to squeeze lots of text into a small space, yet clear and easy to read. They are useful for information that you don't really want to be distracting, yet they stand out from the crowd.

I've zipped some of my favorite pixel fonts found over the net into a niffy zip file for you to download: pixelfonts.zip (105 kb)

I am not their creator, so I don't own the fonts. I'm just helping to redistribute these free fonts.
Labels: Graphic Tutorials, Miscancellous

posted by text21 @ 8:28 PM : Go to top

Server Down Message And 3d Model

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Yesterday, I made a 3d model to be displayed in case my friend's server is down. As his server is actually a mainstream desktop system in a cardboard box, I thought that I should do a model consisting of some desktop components.

Scythe Ninja, Kingston Value Ram, Dominator Corsair, Blender 3d motherboard, Blender 3d cooler, Blender 3d ram, Clear Cover Hard Disk, Blender 3d Harddisk

The model is made using Blender 3d, a free open source 3d modeling software. Most of the CSS codes, flash, php, tutorial sample files for this blog are kindly hosted by him for free. But sometimes, servers behave unexpectedly, like most computers do. They hang, perform weird stuff, etc. Furthermore, even if the server is completely 100% fault free, internet service providers do have downtime from time to time.

In case of his server being unavailable, this blog will have a broken layout and broken content, which is definitely not a pleasant experience to have. Even though I would like to host everything with blogger alone, but due to its restrictive hosting features, not all content can be hosted by it.

If you want to test out the server down notice, you can click here to see it.

I've packed the 3d model (.blend), the images and the website code for a server down message (html and javascript inline popup) into a zip file which you can download here: serverdown.zip (2.38 MB)

You may have noticed that the 3d model in my error message has an outline. The outline is actually rendered separately and resized to make it thinner. I have a tutorial regarding on how to do it here: Blender 3d: Rendering Outlines Separately.

If you like the 3d model, you may use it and redistribute it freely for non-commercial purposes. If you find it useful, do us a small favor by linking back to us. Reciprocal linking is purely voluntarily though. =) But you may not claim my work as yours (eg. redistribute the files watermarked with your own logos). However, if you modify the 3d model to something that looks really different, then you may claim the end result as yours.
Labels: Blender 3d, Web Design

posted by text21 @ 10:03 PM : Go to top

CSS: Rounded Corners

Saturday, December 13, 2008

While making my previous post about web-safe fonts, I stumbled upon a website that helps you make a box with smooth, anti-aliased rounded corners in CSS. Purely in CSS. No images. No Javascript.

It helps you generate all the code you need for a copy and paste job. (Although I've realized that their trick is to use several tiny 1 pixel tall divs to create an illusion of round corners, the idea is just too... unbelievable. The code size is rather compact too.)

I shall elaborate no more. Try it to see it for yourself.

http://www.spiffycorners.com/
Labels: Web Design

posted by text21 @ 6:55 PM : Go to top

Fonts You Should Use On The Web

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

When you use your computer, you may notice that there are some fonts included by default. However, not all these fonts should be used on the internet. Only those that are shared among all computers, the PCs, the macs.

For example, if you specify your font as Calibri, a quite well-known font that's default only among vista machines, a mac user or a XP user viewing the website won't be able to see the text in Calibri.

So, I want to point out about the fonts that are common in all computers, and they are known as web safe fonts.

Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS, cursive
Courier New, Courier New, Courier, monospace
Georgia, Georgia, serif
Impact, Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif
Lucida Console, Monaco, monospace
Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif
Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif
Times New Roman, Times, serif
Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, sans-serif
Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif

Some fonts on windows are similar to the fonts in macs, but they have different names. To overcome this problem, you can use priorities in CSS. For example:

font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', Textile, cursive

So, when checking for the font to use, the viewer's computer will check for 'Comic Sans MS', then check Textile.

But if all of the fonts are absent due to an unknown reason, it will use cursive, which is the family of font 'Comic Sans MS' and Textile. This family is required to be inclued in any web browser that accepts CSS, even if the machine doesn't has the font. Together, there are 5 classes of web-fonts:

sans-serif, serif, monospace, fantasy
Labels: Web Design

posted by text21 @ 1:23 PM : Go to top

Blender 3d: Making A Glowing Glass Cube

Sunday, December 7, 2008

In the banner of this blog, you can notice the arrows look like they emit a "glow".

For this tutorial, I will teach you how to make something similar. A glowing cube.
Have a look at it:

It may sort of look like a radioactive substance, but I actually intended it to be some sort of light emitting glass cube. Let's go on to the tutorial:

Firstly, open up blender 3d. There should be a cube in the 3d view.
To simplify things, we shall be using the cube that's already there.

Here it is. It should be on your screen when you start Blender 3d.

With the cube in selection, go to the material settings. (press F5 for a shortcut)
Then apply the following settings - Color: Red, Emit: 0.500.
This causes the material to glow red.

Then, to give a glassy texture, go to the "Mirror Trans" tab and apply the following settings to mimic glass -
Ray Mirror - RayMir: 0.40, Fresnel: 1.0,
Ray Trans - IOR: 1.43, Fresnel: 1.0, Fac: 1.75,

To make the glowing halo, we need a separate cube that is similarly sized as the original one. Duplicate the cube by going to the "Object" menu, then press "Duplicate"
Alternatively, press Shift + D for a shortcut.
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It is a good practice to know the common keyboard shortcuts in Blender 3d for faster work. You'll still need to duplicate objects later on in this tutorial, so it will be helpful to remember Shift + D.

After duplicating the cube, we need to give it a different material. Under the materials settings, click on the material menu and click "ADD NEW".

Next, click on the "Halo" button. Then, apply the following settings - Color: Red, Alpha: 0.04

With the halo box still selected in 3d view, go to the edit mode.

Go to "Editing" (Press F9 for shortcut). Then, click on the "Subdivide" button for four times.

You will see that the vertices (the dots) on the 3d view double on every click. The aim here is to make enough dots, as each dot represents a halo ball. Once there is a huge number of halo balls squeezed together in the shape of a cube, they combine to create a cube looking halo.

After that, go back to object mode. There are some extra things that needed to be added in object mode.

The cube will look unrealistic if it is only glowing with a halo but not lighting up the near surroundings. We have to add lights into the cube. Press "Space" on your keyboard and go to Add -> Lamp -> Area.

Then, change the view to wireframe. This is so that the cube will look like wire skeletons, hence allowing us to see and edit the lamps we place inside.

Next, press "1" on your number pad to go to side view.
You should see the 3d view change from the one on the left to the on on the right.

Press R, and rotate the lamp 90 degrees clockwise. The lamp is initially faced down in the side view, the aim is to rotate it to shine sideways.

With the lamp selected, go to the "lamp buttons". Then, apply the following settings - Type: Area, Dist: 2.00, Energy: 0.25, Color: Red

Now, we have to create duplicates of the lamp. Firstly, go back to top view by pressing "7" on the number pad.

The aim now is to make the cube emit light in the north, south east west directions, so we need four lamps in total. Duplicate the lamp and rotate it 90 degrees. Repeat the duplicating and rotating, till you have four lamps in total, one facing each side of the cube.

Now, the glass cube is completed. Whats left is just the surroundings. For this example, we need to have a "floor" for the cube to sit on. If it is left alone, it will not look very nice. It needs a surface to shine its glow on to look more realistic.

In Blender 3d, there isn't a mesh called floor. However, there's a mesh called a "Plane", which is a flat panel, and this can do the job by looking like any flat object you want. (Floors, walls, ceilings, screens, etc.) Press "space" on your keyboard and go to Add -> Mesh -> Plane.

The plane is quite small by default. Press R and resize it to as larger, preferably several times the width of the cube.

Go to side view by pressing "1" on your number pad. Then, drag the plane to sit just right below the cube.

The plane needs to be given a nice material to showcase the cube's lighting effects. Go to the material settings (Press F5). Then, add a new material.

The colors and most of the settings are good enough for this example. What it lacks is a mirror-like surface. Go to "Mirror Trans", and apply the following settings - RayMir: 0.50, Fresnel: 3.0

Finally, we need to give the render a dark background. For this tutorial, lets make it black to simplify things. Go to "World Buttons", and change the color of the background from blue to black.
Press F12 and enjoy your render. =)

If you need the source file, you can download it here: glowcube.blend (214kb)

Improvements and suggestions:

- This tutorial uses a cube to simplify things. Its main purpose is to show the concept of making "glowing" objects. You can do the same for other objects of different shapes. Just remember to give it a separate mesh for the halo, and lights for the obvious sides.

- Sometimes, having a single halo for the glow may not be realistic enough. To solve this, you can duplicate the halo mesh, then give it a different color and change the halo size. This can combine two or more halos together to make a single halo that has a "gradient". An example would be a lightsaber, which the halo fades from a bright white to another color.
Labels: Blender 3d, Graphic Tutorials

posted by text21 @ 1:35 PM : Go to top

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Graphic tutorials, blender 3d, paint shop pro tutorials. High quality, fast loading and free.