IZation Labs

Ambient Occlusion: a somewhat resource intensive way to make things just look better. If you’ve ever visited the Blender Artist forums, you’ll see people posting models that they have put their hearts and souls into for weeks, months, even years! Often you will see multiple comments below the first pictures blasting something along the lines of “TURN ON AO”!

Ambient Occlusion simulates the way light travels and bounces off of objects, especially objects that aren’t meant to be reflective. Describing it would be well and good, but I am a firm believer in visual learning. So instead, here are some video examples.

The first video shows a basic cube, with the inner faces extruded inward to give it some depth, as well as an interesting little ‘nub’ on top. Ambient Occlusion has not been activated, it is a simple render with simple lighting.

Click here to see the rest!

Blender 2.49 has been released, and the updates look promising. Hit Blender.org for the details and download. Next stop, 2.5!

Expect an interesting post in the near future, as my most recent (and most expensive) project has nearly been completed!

Here’s a neat video that was posted a few days back on BlenderNation. It had ‘steampunk’ in it’s name, so of course I had to post it. Nice use of Blender!

Steampunk Mousetrap from Ben Dansie on Vimeo.

Personal Note: The Macbook Pro has been back in my possession since last Thursday. Unfortunately I was unable to have the repairs made AND maintain possession and security of my own data, as Apple has to have the old hard drive back. Upon emailing them, they assured me that data on hard drives are properly expunged before the drives are destroyed or refurbished, so I should have nothing to worry about. As long as I trust Apple. :/

–Lace