I was a little at a loss for what to write about this week. I’ve been on holiday from the day job and though I’ve been working on some music pieces I don’t have anything to share on that topic. And since music has really become the focus of what I’ve been writing about for the past several months I was a bit stuck.
Before I was focusing on music I wrote mostly about some 3D art or 3D computer art projects and the like. I haven’t given that up, though I have severely neglected it this year. I 
have intended, all year, to put together another Christmas card for this year. So it’s always been in my mind that getting back to the art was something I needed to do. I just hadn’t done it.
To complicate matters, at the beginning to early part of the year I made the decision that this would be the last year I renewed my subscription to the Autodesk software I’ve been using and would instead embrace Blender. There are a few reasons for this decision. They include cost. Autodesk is expensive. Blender is free. Ok. Yes, the Autodesk software is phenomenally powerful and cool. It’s expensive for my current needs. Also, just because Blender is free does not mean it is not also cool and powerful. If you would like some examples check out the short Sintel from 2010. Or if you have Netflix have a look at the movie Next Gen. The first was done entirely in Blender especially to showcase what can be done with it. The second one is a Netflix original that was created 90 to 95 percent in Blender.
So price is a factor yes. Portability is another. Not only will Blender run on just about anything, Mac, Windows, Linux. You can also run it from a thumb drive or even without installing it. The Autodesk modeling program I prefer, 3DS Max, doesn’t run on Mac.
And then there are the personal reasons. The frustration with feature changes and rendering options that started to get in the way of my enjoying the process of creating 3D art.
That doesn’t mean Blender is perfect. Blender is open source software with development funded by donations, sponsors, and subscription to their cloud option. Wait. Before you jump on that last bit. Unlike other products, you do no have to subscribe or donate to use Blender. And the yearly subscription if you chose it is about 6 percent of a Autodesk subscription.
Being open source means sometimes big releases don’t happen as often. Or after a big release there can be a lot of smaller changes fairly frequently. And yet, because it is open source, I believe written in Python, it means if is highly customizable if you so choose.
Now that I’ve geeked out about the software. I know, it sounds like a sales pitch. Sorry.
So, in addition to facing the somewhat daunting task of creating a new card I was also facing the even more daunting challenge of figuring out how to do that in a new modeling program that has never been especially intuitive to me. Talk about a perfect setup for not getting started.
But a text conversation with my sister triggered an idea that I just had to see if it was going to be possible. Off to poke at Blender I went.
I did manage to export all my models from 3DS Max and Maya to .obj files so I can import them into Blender. That means, like in previous years, I can take some of the assets I’ve already created and re-use them. The only real issue is that the materials and textures didn’t convert. So that’s where I started.
One thing lead to something else to something else as I tried to refresh my brain on how to do some things such that I ended up watching a few of the presentation from this year’s Blender conference in Amsterdam as well as some tutorials on Pluralsight. There are some really cool new things coming in Blender and in the 3D and computer art world in general and I could go on about a few if I’m not careful.
So the little spark has rekindled my motivation for my 3D art and I’ll now be balancing smoking blues riffs with cool 3D computer art and modeling. I fear I may become estranged from my pillow and my old pal sleep. Then again…
I did get a little music stuff done. I’ve got some of the video from the most recent Blues Jam posted. And the pictures are some of the Snowman I’ve been using over the years as I start to get him setup in Blender. Enjoy!