The content will be gradually moved to the new website in the next weeks.

Click on the applet to refresh the drawing

When I finish the summer semester in the University (which is really busy, luckily only one week is left) I’ll work on it more =)

1. Migrated to WordPress 2.5.1 from WordPress 2.3.1
2. Submitted to Google!
3. Post updates - from now on, Normal posts will be by the Author LightningIsMyName, and posts related to site updates (like this) will be posted by admin.
4. Social bookmarking buttons will be added (in a moment).
5. I’ll probably add the Lightbox script for pictures on this website soon.

I hope to submit some more Tutorials soon - Tutorials on coding in Java/Python.

Blender is a tool, not a process. If you can’t make something good without it, you won’t make something good with it. It doesn’t enable you to create a well-designed image without first being an artist and understanding the principles and elements of design.

I strongly recomend any 3d artist, especially beginners, to read this. It’s probably the most insperational article you will read, and you will gain a lot from it.

The article can be found here: http://glenmoyes.com/articles/to_those_learning_3d.shtml

First of all, let’s get to know the 3 common picture file types:

Jpeg (aka Jpg) - Joint Photographic Experts Group. A filetype that has many compression options. Anything from ppor quality to high quality.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics. A filetype for high quality pictures. Unlike JPG, this filetype supports transparency and semi-transparency. Compression is based on the amount of colors in your picture. The less colors you have, the smaller the filesize will be.

Gif - Graphics Interchange Format. Supports animation and transparency. The main limitation on the filetype is that it’s limited for only 256 colors per picture. The only reason to choose this filetype, is if you have an animation.

If your picture has only few colors, or if it has transparency, I recomend using PNG. Otherwise, use JPG.
I’m going to use the picture below for the tutorial:

Jpg - How?
I recomend using Jpg when you really need to squeez a file.
Let’s save the picture as a jpg. Assuming you are using GIMP, Go to the save as screen and type MyFile.jpg to save it as a jpg. If it has more then 1 layer or a layer mask you might get an export screen. Click Export.
Now you should see this screen:

Check the box that says “Show preview in image window” to see a preview with the final quality. I got this:

As you can see, there is some loss of quality.
So let’s increase the quality to 100:

This is nice, but a close look would reveal that there is some loss of quality - take a close look on the black line of the letter F, and compare it with the source. If you still need more quality, it’s possible:

I clicked the ‘+’ sign next to the advance options, and changed the subsampling to 1X1 1X1 1X1 (best quality). Now, it’s almost impossible to find and loss of quality - this is good!

Jpg Tips and Tricks:

1. In order to reduce filesize, notice that the quality increases the filesize logerithmically. This means that decreasing the quality from 100 to 99 will decrease the filesize much more then decreasing the quality from 90 to 89.
   I usually try to save the Jpg on quality of 97.
2. Changing the subsampling to 1X1 and reducing the quality, can sometimes give better results then the default subsampling (smallest file) with higher quality. Play with the subsampling and quality untill you find the best ratio between quality and filesize.
3. Jpeg doesn’t support indexed images - convert them to RGB or Grayscale before saving (Image->mode->RGB/Grayscale)

PNG - How?

PNG supports transparency and semi transparency, and the filesize is usually based on the amount of different colors.

When you save your image as a PNG when it has more then one layer, it will show this screen:

If your image has transparency in it, choose Merge Visible Layers, in order to merge all the layers to one layer while keeping the transparency (it won’t affect the opened image, it will only tell the plugin how to work with the image). You should then see this screen:

I strongly recomend to uncheck the checkbox next to Save color values from transparent pixels. If it’s checked, the color of all 100% transparent pixels will be saved - this is usually a waste of memory as it’s probably not necessary (unless you hid a watermark or anything else on transparent pixels). Unchecking this checkbox will save you lots of memory.

PNG - No Transparency

If your image shouldn’t have any transparency, you should flatten it. Flattening merges all the layers and causes all transparency to be replaced by the background color, it causes the removal of the alpha (transparency) channel. The PNG plugin will save the transparency channel even if everything is 100% opaque (o% transparent). However, if the image is flattened, it won’t save the alpha channel.

To flatten your image, First save a backup with all the layers (save it as an .xcf/.psd or whatever filtype your program uses), Then go to Image->Flatten Image (Click). Notice that all hidden layers in your image will disappear, and all the visible ones will be mreged. The name of this layer will become bold to mark that it has no alpha channel.

Now, let’s get back to the export window:

Choosing flatten image will do the flatening as described above on a temporary copy in your computer’s memory. It will save a flattened image and will keep your current copy untouched.
Now, the same screen should pop but with the save color values from transparent pixels should be grayed out.

PNG Tips and Tricks

1. If your image has only one layer, you won’t see the export screen where you can choose to flatten your image or to merge the visible layers. You will need to flatten it manually (image->Flatten) if you want it flattened.

2. If your image doesn’t have to many colors (like the screenshots of the windows above), save them as PNG. It saves lots of memory and has no loss of quality.

3. PNG transparency won’t be displayed in Internet Explorer - instead you will see some bright blue background, so take that into consideration if you use it in a webpage. Here is a neat way to fix this bug.

4. Finally and most important, In order to squeeze a PNG file, simply reduce the colors! Image->Mode->Indexed (Click). Choose the amount of colors you want (up to 256). When converting to an indexed image, you can control the dithering - it’s in the bottom of the window that will pop when you choose “indexed”.
   If your PNG file has many similar colors you might want to index it and by this saving lots of disk space.
   Note: This technique will probably reduce the quality of the image. You shouldn’t try it on an image with lots of different colors (Click to see why)

5. Is your image grayscale? If so convert it to grayscale mode (Image->Mode->Grayscale) to reduce the filesize.

That’s it - I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and that you learned a bit.
Feel free to leave a comment below with Questions/Thoughts/Opinions. If you have any comment about the site, also feel free to comment.

Feedback on the new look is appriciated

This tutorial was moved to my new website, and there it has an updated version (July 2010): http://lightningismyname.blogspot.com/2008/06/gimp-path-tool-aka-pentool-tutorial_15.html.

Before we start, we need to define several stuff:

Point (aka Anchor) - self explanatory

Stroke 1: This shows a classical curved stroke
Stroke 2: This is a Polygonal stroke
Stroke 3: This is a Curved stroke - note that this is an Open stroke

PathTool Tutorial - Basics

Here is a basic demonstartion of using the Pentool/PathTool:

Now we need to explain 2 more things:
An Active Point is the last point (anchor) that you clicked on. A point can also become active if you drag a line that it’s connected to (see explanations in the illustration below)
A control (handle) becomes visible only if the point it’s part of is active.

in order to curve the line, while in “design” mode click on a line and drag it, notice that handles will come out of the dots - these are used to control the curve of the line. if you click on the handle and drag it you will be able to control the curve of the line more accurately.
by controling the handles you can have up to 2 curves per line so if you want more you will need more dots.
in the animation above I clicked on the line and dragged. I did it once next to each dot. that way i can control each one of the 2 possible curves.

Now let’s try to be more practical: let’s create something!

What happened?! why didn’t the new point Connect to the old one?
The answer is simple: GIMP connects the new dot only when you selected one of the dots at the ends of a path, when a dot is selected it will look empty and a frame will appear in the place you should have a full dot.

In order to reconect this dot Ctrl+Click on one of the dots at the end to connect it. most of the times you won’t need to do this since the dot will be connected automatically but it may happen if you have more then one dot selected or a dot which is no at the ends as your current selection.

we will now delete the newly created dot (by clicking the backspace or delete buttons on our keyboards) and connect our second dot to the first one.

PathTool Tutorial - Detailed Explanation

Note: Cursor pictures are updated for GIMP 2.4
Shortcut Keys:
Design - Deafult
Edit - Ctrl
Move (Stroke) - Alt

Anchor Actions:

PathTool Tutorial - Selections and Stroking

Selection - a selection from a path is basically the area inside the path. When the path is Open, it’s treated like there is a straight line from the starting point to the end point.
When we have an area covered by 2 paths (or any other even number) it won’t be selected. Imagine a ring in real life, the edges of the ring are 2 circles when one is inside another and the area covered by both rings is the hole.
When we have an area covered by 1, 3 (or any other odd number) it will be selected. When we have an area covered only by one path it will be selected since this is how we defined the selection. When an area is covered by 2 (or any other even number) paths it will be a hole so when we have 3 (or any other odd number) it will be full again since we have 1 path inside a hole (the 2 paths cancel each other so we we have nothing in this area except for the one path and then this is the selection)

Stroking - stroking a path (to stroke a path) means to draw along it’s lines.. In order to do this simply Click the path you want to stroke inside the paths dialog (Image window->Dialogs->Paths) and then go to the Image window->Edit->Stroke Path…
In the dialog that will pop you can select how to stroke the path, which tool to use it and you can set many other options - try playing with it.

Click to view fullsize

In this tutorial we are going to model a soccer ball (aka footbal, BuckyBall). I have searched the web and I have seen many great ways to do it, but they all had one problem - it’s impossible to do them in blender.

I recently found a way to do this using the blender deafult shapes and the subsurf modifier. Most people use the smoothing abilities of subsurfing, however I’m going to use the geometrical ability of the subsurf to create the Soccer Ball.

Note: As someone pointed out, I discovered this is not an exact model, the number of hexagons is not 20 as it is in a real soccer ball. Nevertheless, it’s good for backgrounds and other places where accuracy isn’t to important.

Step 1 - Preparing the scene

Open blender in a top view (Numpad 7), and delete the deafult cube/plain if there is one. (Preview)
Add a new Icosphere (Add→Mesh→Icosphere). Set the Recursion level to 2 and the radius to 1.

Step 2 - Creating the shape

Go to the Editing pannel (F9) And add a subsurf modifier, Set the Level of the subsurf to 1 (All the soccer fans out there should already recognize this shape).
Switch to Object mode (Tab) and then Apply the subsurf (We can’t apply it in edit mode). Switch back to Edit mode.

Step 3 - Material 1

Go to the Editing pannel (F9) And press new in Links and Materials under the box where it says 0 Mat 0, this will create a new material for the object (it will be Material 1)
Select all the vertices off the Ball (Click A in the 3d window to deselct all, and another time to select all), and click Assign (just under the new button) to assign the material to the vertices.

Step 4 - Material 2

Switch the Select mode to Faces (Ctrl+Tab and choose faces). Now the view of our ball will change and become full of dots - One for each face.

Now we need to select all the pentagons in the object. A regular soccer ball is made out of Pentagons sorrounded by Hexagons. If you are having hard time finding the pentagons, look at the image below.

Remember that there are pentagons on both sides of the ball! The best way to make sure you don’t miss any, is to go to top view (Numpad 7) and make sure you see 5 pentagons like in the image above. Then go to bottom view (Ctrl+Numpad 7) and make sure you also see 5 pentagons.
Now, let’s assign the second material - create a new material and assign it exactly like before. This will be Material 2.

Step 5 - Black n’ White

Now we will set the materials we assigned black and white. Go to the Shading  (F5) and then to the Material Panel (Click on the red sphere if it’s not already selected).
In Link and Pipelines it says 2 Mat 2 - this means we are editing material 2 out of 2 total materials. Since the second material we assigned was for the pentagons, change the settings to be what you want for the pentagon (I edited the color to black and renamed the material to black)

Click on the left arrow in where it shows the number of the material (picture above) - Whis will take you to edit the first material. I changed the color to white and renamed it White.

Step 7 - The ball is round (or at least it should be )

First of all, let’s smooth the ball a bit: Go to Editing (F9). Under the assign button that we used, there is a button that says set smooth. Click it.
Add a Subsurf modifier, this time set the level to 2 or 3.
You might notice that the ball is a bit bumpy even with the subsurf modifier, This is because of the way we used to build the ball. You can increase the amount of subsurfing to make it even smoother, yet I recomend not to do this. Remember that in reality the ball is not a perfect sphere.

Step 6 (optional) - Bumpy!

Now, most of us now that a footbal has little cumps in it where the pentagons and hexagons connect. I’m going to make them:
Select only 1 pentagon - Not More! Extrude it (E), select Region in the dialog that will pop.
“How much to extrude?” First of all, it must be equal in all areas on the ball, so to make it the same we will type the amount of extrusion using the numpad.
Second, we want to extrude a really small number, otherwise the effect destroys the look of the ball. I recomend extruding somewhere between 0.001 to 0.01. Although it seems small, it’s enough. I extruded 0.01.

Repeat extruding the pentagons, one at a time untill you extrude them all. The best way not to confuse if you already extruded a pentagon is to look at the color around it. If the pentagon of the color got a bit rounded and bigger it means that you already extruded that one.

Your ball should look something like the ball in the picture above - the black dots got round and bigger. This is OK, it means that you did things correctly.
Now we will extrude all the hexagons, one at a time. You will see that the back circles turn back into pentagons - this is how you can see if you already extruded the hexagon or not.

Add some lights, cameras and That’s it - you are done

EDIT: made it to BlenderNation
A tip from brian who posted it there

The change I’d make to the tutorial is to not extrude each pentagon individually. But rather when you select the pentagons to set the material this is when you should extrude the polygons. Just make sure to extrude by region and in place. And then with all the polygons still selected use Alt-S to translate/scale the polygons along their normals. And remember if you happen to deselect the pentagons you can reselect them by selecting the material assigned to them in the Links and Materials Panel. You do have to extrude each of the hexagon’s individually to get the right effect.

I have a website Like most websites/blogs this will be a bit empty on the begining (I can’t think of a way to make content magically appear)
This website is still in a building process - you might see more changes every time you enter.

Some people now me on other places as LIMN (on GIMPtalk), LightningIsMyName (most places), Lightning (Blender artists forum).
I expect a lot of traffic soon - I’m going to upload a blender3d tutorial that will hopefully attract lots of people here.

Good luck to myself and I hope you enjoy my website =)