Since there is no mask in the “Compositing Editor” of Blender yet, I found a simple tricks which could work pretty well especially in case of color grading.
You’ll see nothing really fancy here since the mask can only be square (or pretty close to a square shape though). But if you check out Colorista for instance, the two allowed shapes are ellipse and rectangle.
Blender Quick Tips : How to create masks in the compositing editor from François Tarlier on Vimeo.
I did bump into this website a few days ago, it looks pretty old, but it’s the first time I heard about it, and I think it is worth looking at it for open source software development (Ramen already implemented it).
From there website :
“OpenFX is an open standard for visual effects plug-ins. It allows plug-ins written to the standard to work on any application that supports the standard. This avoids the current per application fragmentation of plug-in development and support, which causes much heartache to everyone, plug-in developers, application developers and end users alike”
Well this is the interesting part ! Big major plug-in development company use it as a few in the following list :
I know many people, especially from the Blender community would disagree with me (even more since the big “fight” fans had on 3dsoul’s blog “5 things Blender should do to be successful in the industry”), but actually I think this could be part of a solution about the point I added to his list asking for an external SDK/API. At least for the special effect part.
So beside the bullshit talks about “Blender should remain freedom and shouldn’t mix with closed source third party apps or commercial one”, this could be really useful for some of us who still want to use Blender as main frame, but still be able to use great external (sometimes commercial) plug-ins !
Here for instance, The Foundry Keylight, which in my opinion is one of the best Keying plug-ins ever (and the first one who tells me blender’s can do the same job, I give him 12 shots to do in a week and expect it to be perfect 
).
If you want to use it today, you’ll need to buy the plug-ins (175€) + on of the software compatible with as Nuke, Shake or so (which I believe is around 2000-3000 €) or even buy an After Effects licence because it come bundle with it now (about 700€). Pretty expensive just to do Keying don’t you think ?
When you can actually only spend 175€ on the plug-in and use it with your favourite apps (even your own if you’d like to).
RamenHD’s developer (Ramen is a open source nodal compositing software in development) is already working on the subject (checkout his blog for ofx). He already start to have good results with The Foundry Keylight and the Sapphire suite Plug-ins.
I believe it is a really smart move, and I hope Blender would do it in the future as well. It might even make simpler the way to develop new filter for it.
Well done article on how to improve Blender to make it fit the industry.
I would add another point to this post is an external SDK/API to make communication easier between application or being able to develop plug-in for it more easly (Blender team if you read this .. cheers )
For the OpenEXR / Nuke point … please please do something about it !
http://3dsoul.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/5-things-blender-should-do-to-be-succesful-in-the-industry
I’ve been fighting with so many people about the subject of “how should you orient your cameras for perfect 3d feeling”. I always was against the idea that both cameras should be parallel, because it’s not how our eyes work at all!
I was pretty happy when I learned that James Cameron ask for developing a new kind of 3d camera where both ocular are looking to the focal point and not to the infinite. So far I couldn’t explain better my self than this video, all the facts are here :
I think that if Skynet would have a name today, it would be called Boston Dynamics. :p
BigDog walking in snow
If you don’t know this company already (famous for its BigDog), they are genius ! Forget about all those crappy stupid robots that says “hi” and do some weird dance ! Those of Boston Dynamics are totally different and really creepy ! The beginning of the end as most people would say. No seriously, there work is awesome and you should check it out.
Before becoming Boston Dynamics, they were “The Leg Laboratory” (leglab). That was between 1980-1995, more than 15 years ago !!
BigDog is probably, as today, the most famous and most advanced robot from Boston Dynamics !
It is a 4 legs mule robot measuring 90 cm long and 76 cm tall and weight 108 Kg. It got a bunch of different sensors also gyroscope and a LIDAR with stereo vision system
BigDog can run at 6 Km and climb hills up to 35° ! all that by carrying an 154 Kg of stuff. And because it wasn’t enough, it could run for 20 Km without stopping or re-fueling (yes it does use fuel) (UPDATE video March 2010)
The ultimate goal for BigDog is to develop a robot that can go anywhere people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA.
Some Nice links :
As today, this is there new toy ! It is not a T800 yet, but we are getting close (UPDATE video April 2010)
Yeeeeaaaahhh we can start to see a few (one ? ) streets of my home town on Google Map Street View. Mauriac which is lost in the center of France !
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
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