And then the weekend comes to an end. I had just got a good head of steam on me with things to do and I looked up and pretty much the weekend was over. Don’t tell me you haven’t had this happen. You know you have.
While the fact that I had to do work for my day job this weekend, which interfered with really getting too deep into anything until Sunday afternoon, didn’t help. I probably wouldn’t have gotten myself kick started much earlier.
I did get the last of the videos posted from the last Blues Jam. I’m happy. I got them up a whole week before the next one. Speaking of. There’s a December Blues Jam coming up this next weekend. I’ve been conspiring with my guitar playing co-worker, who comes out for blues shenanigans, on something we hope will be cool. We’re still working out a couple of minor details. It’ll be fun.
I was listening to some The Manhattan Transfer music and found that they have done a song that I’ve been working on. I’ve heard several versions of the song and have had trouble deciding on a vocal style that really works for me. Their version gave me a different take on how to approach the vocals. I’m going to have to give it a try and see how it goes. And I’m all excited about it. And was ready to get back to practicing it when I ran out of weekend.
I also managed to run out of weekend for 3D art projects. I was humming along making progress on adding materials to my snowman in Blender. And then I was able to add a tree to the scene and get materials on it. And I got some fun renders. I even found a way to handle the sky using the lamp. I used a sky preset. How cool is that. I got all this ready and was thinking I had a couple more things I wanted to try to add, that I will have to model, and no more weekend. Oh well. At least I’m making progress.
Truly. What I managed to do in Blender this weekend was significant progress for me. I was able to apply materials. Even some stuff with patterns to add some texture look and interest. Shiny things were cool. On top of that, I figured out how to bring in objects and meshes from other files to use them in my scene. That’s important because it saves so much time and effort. I probably could have done this just using the full scene that I took the object from. I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work so instead I opened the file for that scene. Saved it as something else and then deleted everything I didn’t want. This works out well because I named the file what it is so I’ll be able to find it easier next time I need it.
It’s big progress. Once I finish up what I’m doing with this scene I’ve got a couple more ideas I’m ready to try. They are likely to be a little trippy, or edgy, or at least different. I was partly inspired by another of the presentations from this year’s Blender conference. The presenter, his company has a very distinct style and they have been getting work doing some advertising campaigns in that style. Which is cool because that meant we got to see some of the style before the product that they developed it for is actually out. It got me to thinking of different ways I might approach the holiday cards I create. If it works out, it will definitely be different and something that stands out. First, to finish this up. I’m so close.
So along with making actual progress with Blender, I had another milestone today. I turned off the auto-renew feature for the Autodesk subscription. When it expires in April, it expires. I’m kind of excited about that. I’m also excited by the 20 or so giga-bytes of space I’ll get back on my hard drive. Not to worry. I will rapidly fill that with Blues Jam videos and Blender models.
The weekend coming up has a couple of big things for me. I have a test to determine if I will be ready to test for my next level of black belt in Taekwondo. I’m excited about that, and nervous, and trying to stay in good health and uninjured for the next few days. And there is the Blues Jam. Which is always a good time and could be extra fun if what we have conspired to do is a success. I don’t have any cool music or guitar pictures this week so here are a couple more pictures of the snowman scene I’ve been working on.