I’ve been playing with Blender a little today (the program, not the food thing). I stumbled across Blender many years ago but never really gave it a try. I don’t know why since 3D modeling is something I’ve always been interested in. Working on this video project for our youth group has really got me interested in Blender again. I’ve been trying to find the time to go through a few tutorials. Mainly I’m just trying to get the basic controls and maneuvering down so that I can start building a few things.

We’re planning on doing a ton of video projects that really push the limits of special effects this summer, which is the reason I’m really trying to start making stuff with it. I learn best hands on (which is part of the reason we’re doing a lot of projects this summer). Once I start making anything worthwhile I’ll start putting it up here. I’ve seen a lot of really awesome stuff made in Blender and want to make my own!

Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems. It’s a great alternative to expensive 3D programs such as Maya, Lightwave, or 3D Studio Max. There are a ton of great resources to use to learn Blender, such as the free wiki book, Blender 3D: Noob to Pro

This is an extremely busy week for me, and it just got busier. Our church has a banquet happening on Friday. This is the banquet that we are working on the video for. It’s a short video but requires a lot of extra work. I’m working on getting that cut, keyed, and all put together the soonest that I can.

Two days after that is the grand opening for our new building. I don’t have too much work to get done before that but there are still a few things that need to be worked on this week (Which just reminded me about some lights I need to work on).

On top of all that I’ve still got my normal job. The one thing that just made it busier is they are now sending me to the corporate office in Dallas for a sort of round table meeting to see how everything is going in this new location. that means instead of working on other stuff Wednesday and part of Thursday, I’ll be in Dallas.

Don’t expect many posts from me this week. I won’t have much time for the internet, sleep, fun, etc.

I’m going to start posting some more useful and informative stuff on here. I want to start off with a bunch of free software that makes things a lot easier.

The first useful software is VLC Player. VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

VLC can be simply used as an all in one media player. Use it to play just about any media format there is without having to worry about different codecs and dealing with programs that take forever to open or are really slow (Windows Media Player and iTunes).

VLC media player is also completely free. That’s right, download and use it without paying a penny. If you’d like to help develop it, VLC is also open source! VLC is available for many different operating systems right from their website. Download today and enjoy one of the greatest media players out there.

Another great new video from Loading Ready Run. The first draft Iron Man trailer.

The video we are making for our youth group is coming along. The deadline is coming up here very quickly and so far not much has been done. Mostly because I have been working way too much.

I’ve got the video rough cut done. Today I have and am going through and cleaning up the cuts and lining out second by second what will be where. I’m also getting the list of scenes we need animated second by second so we don’t have to make extra stuff we won’t use.

The audio has been killing me. For some reason in the timeline Premiere Pro has a lag in the audio with this HD footage. It’s not just this computer either as I tried it on the other computer we’ve got. I think it’s just the fact that these aren’t the latest and greatest computers. Both computers are pretty much exactly the same, earlier model dual core processors, 1GB RAM, 256MB video card. I want to order some more RAM from Newegg but it’s going to take a few days to get here and I’m not sure it will help. I’m just gonna have to kind of live with it.

I’ve been playing a little with the animation we’re doing in Lightwave but haven’t really got anything to show yet. Once I get these scenes all exactly cut and I have the exact things I need done in Lightwave I’ll start with those. Cory and Nate: I’ll probably need your help once it comes to this.

In fact, if anybody who does 3D animation happens to see this and wants to help out a Youth Group make this awesome video, let me know. I’ll buy you a Dew, a Beer or a camel, whichever you’d like. Let me know.