News about Chaos & Evolutions
on March 12th, 2010, by DeevadHello,
My week in the Durian team is almost finished here, and I couldn’t leave the Blender Institute without posting on the blog.
Apart for Sintel , I came to the Blender Institute with the prefinal videos of my DVD “Chaos& Evolutions” . And after some corrections, I decided to release the third video today about Alchemy ( edit: free, multi-platform and open source, download it here ) .
Youtube version above, with high definitions options.
You can also download the OGV Theora file as it will be on the DVD here :
download.blender.org/durian/03-alchemy.ogv
I still have some video editing to do with Kdenlive before delivering the final DVD to the Blender Institute, but I prefer to take time to finish it properly and spend time on Sintel art direction. Thanks for the patience of people that already pre-order it, and thanks for people that will pre-order it. By the way, It shouldn’t be too long to finish, and during this will extend of some weeks the pre-order discount of 10% on the Blender E-shop.
A propos Sintel art direction , I spent my week time here to do paint-over and matte-painting. It was good to connect again with the team, and meet Beorn. But sorry ; no picture of my recent work for Sintel at the moment, 3D artist will show the result soon.
-David
March 12th, 2010 at 1:54 am
Video looks amazing, really looking forward to getting my dvd, awesome work sir.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:54 am
pure awesomeness!
thanks for all the incredible help here!
About the DVD, this will be of a great value, can’t wait to get my copy!
March 12th, 2010 at 1:54 am
on peut plus l’attendre, ce DVD
we can’t wait for this DVD anymore
March 12th, 2010 at 2:16 am
Same here! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, and for letting us participate in these magnificent processes of painting!
March 12th, 2010 at 2:48 am
Incredible footage David, I’m really interested in ordering the DVD now. I haven’t seen any 2D instructional DVD’s like this, so definitely a one which I will buy
March 12th, 2010 at 3:18 am
Damn that is aweasome!!, but I don’t have money to pre-order my copy, hope next month
March 12th, 2010 at 3:31 am
Wow, thanks for the link! I only found one with a linux version, and I tried to use it with Cygwin – without success! While trying that, I wondered whether blender couldn’t at least support the mirrored painting! You can mirror the editing and sculpting, why not the painting as well?
March 12th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Great job! I didn’t plan to order this DVD, but after watching the video I had to order one. I like to watch you how you put those great open source tools to work, it’s just like watching Bob Ross
I’m not sure if you planed to put a little information on the hardware on the DVD what you use at the time… do you use a mouse at all or just a tablet? Do you use one screen or two? Any other device? For example in Alchemy, do you have one hand on the keyboard at all times to press x?
Thanks,
Markus
March 12th, 2010 at 5:48 am
wow…what can I say…so awesome. I’m putting Alchemy on my list of things to learn to use. I do a lot of character desinging (mostly cartoon), so now I can’t wait to throw some new, and use full, tools into the mix. Can’t wait to start ramping up my drawing mind and get drawing again. Great video, very inspirational.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:13 am
I’d been putting it off, but just ordered one. The old timelapse from a while back of David drawing Sintel and the dragon was enough to convince me.
PS – My screen is 1440 x 900, so this will be a perfect fit. Thanks David!
March 12th, 2010 at 9:28 am
better than expected!
but those “censored” bars were redundant and i hope the real video is without them.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Invalueable!…
The Blender Fundation is teaching art to the world, and giving the tools to do it.
A gift to humanity.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:22 am
I allready pre-ordered weeks ago! I hope it can be shipped soon
This video is pure awesomeness, exceeding my expectations! David, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge! I am so excited, but i will try not not think about it until i got the DVD 
March 12th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I’m already feeling a better artist
March 12th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Thats amazing work, from an amazing artist! I’m just gonna break into my piggy bank!
March 12th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Really cool to watch you work. However, beeing a student with not to mutch money and no tablet, I will not buy the dvd. But since I will probably download it, I donated 7 € (not much, but thats what I can afford). So to everybody else that will download it, donate what you can afford and think it is worth. The donate button is on the support page
March 12th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
* The donation button is on the sponsors page I mean.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Really great. I also didn’t plan to order one. But the order is now placed. I hope it will be released soon.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Excelent!
March 12th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Heh, “to setup a figure that looks like an human”
March 12th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Wow, this is looking fantastic, even better than I thought, can’t wait for the DVD! Your art has already given me the final nudge to switch to gimp, now going to give alchemy a go. Thanks David!
March 12th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Very inspiring, and a revelation, just like when David introduced me and many others to alchemy (and mypaint) in that original concept art post. I’m definitely preordering this now!
March 12th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
it’s super interesting, you always made us discover a lot of stuff.
Thanks David:)
March 12th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Thanks a lot for the warm welcome you made to this first video, it’s will give me energy to finish this DVD the sooner I can.
Now, some general answer :
Alchemy is free and open source.
Documentation for instaling it to your system :
*OSX
Doc : http://en.flossmanuals.net/Alchemy/InstallingOSX
*Linux
http://en.flossmanuals.net/Alchemy/InstallingLinux
*Windows
http://en.flossmanuals.net/Alchemy/InstallingWindows
@Markus about device :
The DVD have a small intro about this. But here are the main informations ; I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun A5, and a Intuos 3 A4. Not simultaneously, the little is for travelling, the big for home. I’m actually planning to switch to a Wacom Intuos 4 A5; for both house and traveling with the same device. I like little surface, but the Bamboo Fun A5 have too low resolution for being really confortable with a HD screen ( 1920×1080 ).
Anyway, during this week at this institute I took the Wacom Bamboo Fun A5 and worked a 6K matte painting one a 1920×1080 screen connected in HDMI to my laptop. Worked fine ; Mypaint and Gimp got good behavior even with this high-res, just miss a bit of precision If I would like to do some lineart or thin drawing.
And about keyboard, ‘yes’ I have constantly a hand on it while drawing, and I’m always happy to learn new keyboard shortcuts.
@Dundee about the censored bars :
I had a discution about nudity on Blenderartist forum at the first launching of the DVD presales. Actually this system protect and respect the sensitivity of users that have problem watching nudity. So, I will keep “censored” warning in the final versions. As a Creative Commons video , feel free to crop it to your taste if you have to use it in a class room, or in a public place.
@Achim Luebbeke :
Actually you can paint in mirror using Blender ( if you like the painting engine of Blender). Just a trick of 2 plane with a simple UV mapping.
@Mutze:
Cool for your informations about the donation button, I appreciate this way of supporting the Blender Foundation.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
I hate you, hate you, hate you….
Very, very well done!
March 12th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
WOW !!!
Alchemy is magic in your hands !!!
You are a magician !!!
Bravo David !!!
March 12th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Very nice video, especially a very good balance between realtime painting to get the concept and fast-forward to deepen the lesson.
What it does miss is voiceover accompanying the notes in the video, which you really really should do in the final version, explaining more in detail and using the notes just to point out the main parts of what you like to teach.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
I just wanted to say your video explanation with comic texts was great.
Good pacing for readability, helpful notices when you speed up and slow down the time-lapse, and love the review of proportions at the beginning.
My interest in this DVD went up a lot seeing this.
Thanks David, for the DVD, and the awesome contribution to the Durian Project!
March 12th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Wow, that was very impressive.
I like the ambient music for the background, it makes really ‘zen’ just watching the video.
Maybe a voice over would spoil that.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
I also preordered weeks ago. Proud pre-owner! Nothing more to say that hasn’t been said before, I feel like a kid before Christmas, although I already spent thousands on CS4.
One thing: be WARY about the Intuos 4. I own an L since half a year, and I imagine in your hands/with your degree of usage, you’ll need a replacement surface just after that much time. The nibs wear off within hours, thus scratching everything up. If you order one, at least wait until they have decent replacement. There is a petition running concerning the decline in qUality and reliability and some other issues that remain unsolved since more than 7 months. If you like the Intuos 3, get one of those – that’s what some say.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
It’s so smooth!
March 12th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
David, thank you for the tip with the planes. Actually, I thought about painting the skin of a mirrored model, with the chance to switch between mirrored painting and not mirrored painting f.i. on the skin of a modeled head.
Your tip could work even for that purpose when the planes and the uv of the head share the same pic in a sophisticated way, although it is slightly less intuitiv. Just a simple test: http://www.puppenheim.org/mirrored_face_painting.blend
March 13th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Man, you did a good job releasing that video. I am REALLY gratefull for opening my eyes and showing me Alchemy. What a GREAT piece of software! Mirror is just what I was always praying for!
Now, all I need is whole DVD – youre a hell of an artist. I enjoy it SO MUCH. Greetings from Mexico!
March 13th, 2010 at 3:51 am
As for the “nudity” – come on! Bunch of people need to understand that learning to draw anatomy is crucial and we cant learn on figures wrapped in cloth. If someone is so sensitive maybe he suppose to draw Smurfs, Mickey Mouse and Pluto? Drawing NAKED (yes, N A K E D) figures is natural, normal and perfectly OK. How would I know where to place nipples if breast would be covered with a HUGE “censored” sign? Same with genital area (Yes, people have NIPPLES and GENITALS, we are not Ken and Barbie). So do not be a slave to bunch of hypocrits and prudes that trying to stop ARTISTS from LEARNING (frankly, I dont even see other use for that kind of semi-manga nudity…). Lets be free in all extension – human body is also open source, it is NOT tabu subject to any NORMAL person. Anyone who thinks this is bad thing in art oriented dvd will probably see bunch of pubic hairs when exposed to Rorschach test… Poore perverts.
March 13th, 2010 at 5:21 am
@ Nezumi – I am an artist and a “prude” as you say. I bought the DVD. There are valid reasons for warnings – and as a not-so-normal person, I appreciate David’s consideration of people like me. I like being warned and being able to make a decision. It is a matter of courtesy, not forced censorship.
March 13th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Don’t get me wrong – warning is perfectly OK as long as I will have an option to get rid of all stripes and letters from an ART.
Being prude (or whatever you want to name it) AND an artist is hell of a challenge I guess. There is now way you can learn draw good characters without discovering that shocking truth hidden under cloth. Learning history of an art must be pain as well as tons of sculptures and paintings are exposing innocent soul for a view of human body as it was created. Even this little, perverted cupid do not care much about covering his body.
Explain me then – how you want to deal with this? Do you think Louvre should place warnings about nudity at entrance? You think other museums full of art containing BEAUTY of human body should do it? Would you forbid your kid going to expositions because he may see naked body?
But as I say – as long as it will be an OPTION they may do few versions. For muslim fundamentalists it may have CENSORED on face in example – to respect their sensitivity. For Jewish Orthodox we can place hairs in other layer with an option to hide it. And so on.
WAKE UP! You want to learn how to draw human – you have to deal with nudity. Otherwise you may just as well start learning painting environments, as you will never master human figure without knowing how it looks like.
BTW, I remember time when people wasnt all so sensitive, walking around like a bunch of sissys, feeling offended just by ANYTHING, feeling verbaly abused every second word they hear, feeling abused by what they see and so on. And then we have movies like “300” where Spartans all of sudden are wearing some funny panties… Jeez…
March 13th, 2010 at 8:01 am
I didn’t mean that to sound harsh – I understand where you are coming from. There is very much to be learned from the study of anatomy for the artist/animator. I greatly respect the beauty of the human body in all its glory. And I do not shun studying it.
Much of what I said was reactionary (“I am a prude”). I debated for quite a while over getting this DVD, but decided it was worth it because of the value of learning the art. The aspect of drawing human characters was not my primary interest so much as learning the software, but it will be of value to me nonetheless.
Anyway, peace! Maybe some day we can visit the Sistine chapel together
March 13th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Reactionary.. Heh – so was mine really
Everytime I can read about censorship of this kind I am overreacting. Why? Because I cant imagine better place for nudity as real art. Not vulgar, cheap porn – but creative, beautiful art. And then some individuals (not talking about you, pal. Just generally.) starting all that drama, telling us what we should do an what not. Funny thing though – normally same O-So-Offended prudes do not care about violence and blood.Look at the game industry for example. If there will be a scene with nudity – that would make all sort of persons protest. But they would completely don’t care about rest of the game that can be blood bath. GTA as an example – some sex scenes were cut out from game, but all massacre you can do there is perfectly fine 
In many countries you can legaly have sexua relationship long time before you can legaly watch porn – another example of stupidity in all that nudity involved business
Anyways – I mean no harm. Just sending a message to all those “purity fighters” that for me are biggest hypocrits, that many times would not spot a difference between art and tasteless porn.
Peace.
Back to subject – this material will be available to download? I would be glad to pay for that kind of distribution.
March 13th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
BF usually don’t make the material available for download, but others often upload torrents within a week or so. And since it is licenced cc this is ok. And as I said in my previus comment there is a donation button on the sponsors page. So if you just want a digital copy, download this and then make a donation so that BF gets the money they deserve and need.
March 13th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
@Deevad about answering all my questions: thank you!
March 13th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
This looks awesome, thank you for this preview! You really have a talent for telling a story, it is very pleasant to just watch the whole thing. I wonder if they let you have any influence on the story telling of Durian…
March 13th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
i love your introduction on human anatomy… now i finally have the proportions right
March 13th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
I like this SNV commit!
4:18 PM yesterday :
SVN commit 1315: Slight adjustment to 3.4a block: gave the chicken a slight up-down motion. (nathan)
March 14th, 2010 at 3:01 am
At what resolution Gimp goes lagging on you ? It is hardware dependable or it is jut Gimp engine slow with big resolution : A4 in general .. ?
Maybe some recomandation to buy Loomis books along DVD will be nice.
Remebered that on http://www.blender3d.org what a Preston Blair link.
Maybe someon readd it but with this
link http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-first.html
March 14th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
You are THE member of the durian team.
way to go David this is pure awesomeness!!!
March 15th, 2010 at 10:54 am
David : clap, clap!…
Rapide, complet, propre, magique, simple, clair.
ça se regarde comme un poême, ça s’assimile comme du sucre.
C’est bon pour la tête, pour les yeux, pour les mains.
C’est un DVD à acheter en double voir en triple.
March 15th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Great!
March 15th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
This week I finish to render the videos with Kdenlive; next week is for user interface ( html5 ) and packaging; Hope to send it complete start of april to everyone !
Sorry for the 15 days late as it was previously annunciate for half March. And thanks for all the precommand !
@TheTinyToon about voiceover :
I can’t do voice over and have a clean result ( in my opinion ). Because the video are CC , if someone want to do the modification, it will be still easy.
@LetsAllPretend about readability :
Thanks a lot, doing no-voice over challenge me to try to find something efficient visually. I’m happy of your feedback.
@Kenden about the music :
Thanks for the author, Kevin MacLeod, find all his good CC work here : http://incompetech.com/
@Corniger about Intuos 4 and CS4 :
You will be able to use this DVD with your Photoshop CS4 because I didn’t made the content based on the softwares ( exept for Alchemy ) but on the method, and drawing knowledge.
Thanks a lot for your precious information about the Intuos 4 ; I will try to get a Intuos3 A5 special edition ( wide + airbrush ) but it look disapeared from sellers e-shops. So, I will “ebay” this, thanks for the advice !
@Achim Luebbeke about painting in mirror in Blender :
Your blend files is fun to play with, work pretty well actually. I have to developp a bit more the concept to transform Blender in my next “Mandala Zen” 2D apps.
@Nezumi & Robbie Losee for the “nudity” long discution :
I’m happy about the end of this discution, thanks and about the idea that was developped in both opinion. Thanks
about downloading video :
+1 with the behavior of mutze
@yoff about influence on Durian story :
I didn’t got any influence on the story directly, but more on the details and the “backgrounds story” of some object and place. That’s really fun to do.
@Tom about anatomy :
Thanks !
@Numarul7 about Gimp :
My test with Gimp were very impressive. Finally I can see that big resolution are not really a problem for Gimp exept that digital painting on bigger size involve using bigger brush size. And brush are often slow when scaled to a big size.
about Loomis books :
I did this recommendation in the first videos.
Of course
@Pix’nlove & kopi : Thanks !
AIO: Merci beaucoups.
March 18th, 2010 at 4:31 am
Please, Please, give us more videos, you are inspiring me and ur videos are amazing
March 19th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Fantastic work, and glad to see how you use Alchemy – a very freeing tool I’ve found so far!
And my 2c re nudity, keep the warning in place and whatever you think is needed, but really, anyone serious about drawing the human form needs to deal with nudity maturely. Life-drawing classes should be mandatory anyway, and you have to understand the forms beneath those crazy costumes!
Many thanks and looking forward to the DVD!
March 19th, 2010 at 6:42 am
Oh sorry to bring up nudity again, didn’t realise this had all been knocked about so much already :blush: Anyhow, Viva la Difference!
March 20th, 2010 at 5:32 am
Amen to that!
November 8th, 2010 at 1:56 am
Oh wow. That’s incredible. I have almost no drawing ability whatsoever, but I know someone Alchemy would be perfect for.
I wanted to download the video though, and the link appears to be broken now, even on the product page for the DVD.
I’d love to buy the DVD, but can’t afford it anytime soon. :[