Farewell Tumblr, It’s Been A Blast
In late January we moved the Envato Marketplace blogs here to Tumblr, and it has been a blast. A crazy 4,006 posts later over seven tumblogs, we’ve come to appreciate Tumblr’s speed and flexibility, its informal atmosphere, its variety of post types, its integration with other social media sites, and its bookmarklet that allows you to create Tumblr content from just about anywhere.
Many of you have found a home at Tumblr too, with 1,252 of you creating your own tumblogs and following us. If you’d like to give your new home a fresh coat of paint, you’ll want to check out ThemeForest’s Tumblr Themes section and pick out something that appeals.
But it’s time for us to move on. A new unified blog called Envato Notes will be launched in the next day or so. The new blog will support marketplace authors, sharing tips and giving advice that will help you market yourself more effectively. It will also be a central place for the community to get together and keep up with the latest Envato news.
Besides visiting the new blog, make sure you’re following 3DOcean on Twitter, hang out on the 3DOcean forums, and keep your skills up to date by regularly visiting Cgtuts+.
See you around!
Animating a Merry-Go-Round using Expressions in Maya 2009
“Animating using expressions can be a big timesaver, especially when it comes to mechanical objects such as a merry-go-round! In this tutorial, Stephen Ko walks us through a simple expressions-based project, creating a simple UI with sliders to control the different parts of his model. Let’s get started!”
The file of the day is Giraffe Boxer by DIGIT3D.
“Character Model – Cartoon style. Modeled in 3DS Max 2009 box modeling 3344 polys UV mapping textures lighting & camera setup.”
Series: Creating a Jonathan Apple – Part 1
“In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial series we go through the complete process of creating a apple. This includes the modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering process.”
A Sneak Peek at Premium for Non-members + A Premium Giveaway!
“You may have noticed that Cgtuts+ has been posting more Premium content over the last few months, but what exactly is Premium, how does it differ from normal content and, more importantly, how do you get your hands on it?! Well today I’m going to give you a behind the scenes look at the Tuts+ Premium system, and I’m sure you’ll love what you see!”
The file of the day is Set of books by modelplusmodel.
“High quality books in different color variations (see previews). Now you can quickly add more details to any of your scenes.”
Clients From Hell
I was contacted to do a branding project for a client who sold fruit juice locally. He came to my office and presented me with a storyboard of how the introduction animation for his website should run: The first few slides show a banana, pineapple, peach and strawberry happily dancing and cheering as they walk around in circles. About three or four slides in, they all jump into a working blender and their juices splatter all over the screen. The last slide is just their logo slowly fading in. He was dead serious.
Presenting A Brand using 3Ds Max – Day 1
“When designing an identity and brand materials for a client, good presentation is crucial! In the first part of this 2-day tutorial, Hussain Almossawi takes us through how to model the different items usually involved in the branding process, whilst in Day 2 he’ll cover Lighting, Applying Materials, Studio Settings, Rendering and Exporting, and finally the Post Production. So let’s get started!”
This week’s featured item is Grass Lawn Hi-Res Texture 01 by 3dRender.
“This large scale hi-res grass texture has been created using 16 separate 12 megapixel photographs, which have been carefully edited and combined into a single perfectly tiling, 100% seamless image.”
“Tuesday Total Textures is post series that will bring a new life to your Tuesdays. Every week I’ll be posting some free hi resolution textures that you can use in your projects. Check out this week’s textures, download the ones you like and start making your texture collection.”
