First Week of Blender

Today marks the end of the first full week of my senior project, and my adventures with Blender 3D continue to progress with every lesson and tutorial module. Projects that I've completed since my last post include a parachute (with the same penguin as before), various types of pipe joints, a goblet made of glass, a crude face mask, and the two most detailed projects so far: a jeep and a small house.

Six-cylinder Pipe Joint

Rough Face-Mask

Penguin on a Parachute

Toy-style House and Fence

Glass Drinking Goblet

Jeep with Rocket Launcher (yes, the rocket launcher was included in the tutorial)

There are four modules remaining in Unit 2: Basic Modeling and Shading, including lighting tutorials. I'm particularly looking forward to the lighting lessons to improve the general overall look of the rendered images.

Additionally, our sponsor, George Clemens of George Clemens Architecture, took Erica and myself on a small field trip yesterday to one of the buildings that is being constructed in the area, which he and the company designed. I was incredibly impressed by the level of detail and involvement that the architect was involved in to design the building. I took numerous photos but as of now they are still sitting on my phone; expect to see them in the next post.

At the end of this first week, we are approximately halfway through the tutorial e-book. I don't think we're planning to finish all the advanced tutorials (particularly the animating ones), so I am excited to finish learning and begin modeling a final product of my own.

Ben Wu