My name is Coral and I am an artist and animator. I have been going to an awesome weekly event, at Think Tank Planetarium in Birmingham, called Dome Club.
Mario Di Maggio, the founder of Dome Club and planetarium manager, asked me if I would make some stuff in Blender for the dome and do some talking at Dome Club about using Blender to make dome films and hopefully encourage some other creative people to get involved.
I said yes and so began the adventure...
The first thing I needed to do was check out Blender.
The first thing I needed to do was check out Blender.
Blender is an open source 3D modelling and animation software. It is free to download so take a look and have a play. You can download it from http://www.blender.org/
The next task was make something for the dome.
I have found everything I have needed so far on http://blendertarium.ottplanetarium.org in the tools and tutorials link. It is an excellent resource and a place to learn from other dome heads.
Ron Proctor has developed a fish-eye lens camera in Blender that allows you to render dome-masters easily. A dome-master is a circular image that contains the correct distortion for projection onto a dome.
He has created some useful tutorials for how to use the fish-eye camera http://blendertarium.ottplanetarium.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31
So here are my first dome-masters created in blender
I had heard of Blender but had no real experience of using it. So I downloaded the software and watched the "getting started" tutorials http://cgcookie.com/blender/get-started-with-blender/
I found these easy to follow and in no time was making my first 3D models in Blender.
I found these easy to follow and in no time was making my first 3D models in Blender.
The next task was make something for the dome.
I have found everything I have needed so far on http://blendertarium.ottplanetarium.org in the tools and tutorials link. It is an excellent resource and a place to learn from other dome heads.
Ron Proctor has developed a fish-eye lens camera in Blender that allows you to render dome-masters easily. A dome-master is a circular image that contains the correct distortion for projection onto a dome.
He has created some useful tutorials for how to use the fish-eye camera http://blendertarium.ottplanetarium.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31
So here are my first dome-masters created in blender
I previewed this test at the last dome club and am happy to say it went down really well.
I did a brief talk on how I created the test in blender in which I showed the blender file which I used to make it.
I shall be making further test pieces and posting my dome tests, ideas, inspirations and tips on this blog. I'll also be at Dome Club regularly to talk about blender, making dome content and sharing how I am getting on.
I did a brief talk on how I created the test in blender in which I showed the blender file which I used to make it.
I shall be making further test pieces and posting my dome tests, ideas, inspirations and tips on this blog. I'll also be at Dome Club regularly to talk about blender, making dome content and sharing how I am getting on.
Great stuff! I look forward to seeing what can be done with Blender and taking the plunge myself.
ReplyDeleteHi. I use Blender myself and made a few short clips for fulldome in the past.
ReplyDeleteI'll be looking forward to seeing more on your blog!
Hi, thanks for checking out my blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm very excited to be launching it officially at Dome Club tomorrow. Unfortunately the past few days I have been suffering from what I can only describe as the plague (or flu) and have not been on my pc much.
About to post some more stuff and a fulldome collaborative project I would very much like for you to look at and hopefully take part in.