Archive for June, 2009

Getting started with YafaRay and Blender 3D for interior design

I still believe that we may use both YafaRay and LuxRender in our architectural visualization projects, because LuxRender can`t beat YafaRay in one tiny detail: render speed. The quality and realism of the images created with LuxRender are amazing, but they demand long render times to become clear enough to…

How to import multiple 2d cutout texture images to Blender 3D

Last week I have suggested a great resource for texture maps of plants and shrubs, along with a small tutorial on how to turn the maps into transparent PNG files ready to use in Blender 3D. If you have tried to use those maps, you may have realized that it…

Free download of texture maps of trees and shrubs

What could be better than downloading furniture models for your projects? Well, I could say a lot of things and among them a good set of texture maps of plans, trees and shrubs. If you want to download a set like this to use in your projects, an artist called…

Modeling an Arco floor lamp by Castiglioni in Blender 3D

A very good practice that I always recommend to my students is to model pieces of furniture in your spare time. Every time I have a few time available I open up Blender 3D and start to work on some furniture models. If you do that for a while, I…

Real time rendering with Photon Mapping and Gamma Correction

If there is something that I always recommend to my students, is to read a lot about the theory behind computer graphics, because not only from visual exercises we learn to be better artists. From all the reading available on the web, I really like the ones that explain concepts…

Using the B-Mesh for architectural modeling in Blender 3D

A new system to manage the way Blender 3D deals with Mesh objects is in development right now, and it`s called B-Mesh. Besides the control options that this new system will introduce to Blender, when it`s fully implemented, one of the highlights of the system will be the support for…

Trick to minimize the noise in rendered images from Unbiased renderers

If you have been using an unbiased render engine like LuxRender in the last couple weeks, you may have noticed that this type of render engine requires a long time to produce noise free images. By the time we hit the render button, the full image already appears to us,…

Modeling a Panton Chair in Blender 3D

One of the new features that are currently in development for Blender 3D and will be a great help for anyone working with architectural visualization, is the rewrite of the NURBS system. If you ever tried to work with the actual NURBS system in Blender you will notice that it…