Congrats to our Swift 3D Addict BlinkOK.

BlinkOk shows off his modeling 'know-how' in this brilliant dragon model. This is a spectacular model that shows the power of the Advanced Modeler and the level of complexity that Swift 3D can achieve.



>>Here is the link<<



Click on the first link in the User Showcase.

Advanced Head Modeling Series
Learn advanced modeling techniques and tips from the source.

Part 1: Roughing in the Head
This is a basic tutorial for modeling the base mold of the head for our character Gomer.

Part 2: Eye Sockets
This is a basic tutorial for modeling a set of simple eye sockets that will hold the eyes of our character Gomer.

Part 3: Eyes
This tutorial is really simple. It focuses on creating the eyes for our character. In this tutorial the user will become familiar with surface groups and applying textures to the different surface groups.

Part 4: Nose
In this tutorial users will add a nose our 'work-in-progress' character. Users will learn how to add extra details to a mesh to make the character slightly more complex.

Part 5: Mouth
In this tutorial users will add a mouth to character 'Gomer'. Reshaping the overall mesh and defining a region for the mouth are all part of this tutorial.

Part 6: Final Details
In this tutorial users will add the final, destinguishing features to their characters simply by moving vertices and turning edges. Check it out!

- - Here is the link - -

I hope you all find this tutorial series useful!
Please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your feedback on this set of tutorials.

View an example Animation Challenge entry!

Swift 3D Animation Challenge!
Hello folks and welcome to our first ever animation contest.

If you are a regular reader of 'The Blue Streak' you'll notice that we have been focusing our attention on animation lately. Two of our latest threads improvise on how to rig a humanoid character and then animate a walkcycle with it and/or a run cycle. If you haven't read through them, or if you're not familiar with rigging and animating a humanoid character you can find them here (Its much easier than you may think!!!):

1. Rigging and Animating a Walk Cycle
2. Animating a Run Cycle

With the knowledge you gathered from the Rigging - Walk Cycle and Run Cycle blog reviews you can animate a humanoid in any fashion you desire.
Now, lets put your animation skills to the test!

Animation Challange Winners:

1. MouthOpen Multimedia - http://www.erain.com/Blog/Files/mo_erain_contest.html


2. meowo - http://www.erain.com/blog/files/beep.htm

Honorable Mention:

1. Ivan Interactive - http://www.i-i.fr.fm/html/animechallenge.htm


2. Marcos Montes - http://www.neeshal.com/marcosm/player.htm


3. Malte Euler - http://me-raum.de/animation/

Special thanks to everyone who participated!

Qualified Entries:(to date)

• MouthOpen Multimedia - http://www.erain.com/Blog/Files/mo_erain_contest.html


• Ivan Interactive - http://www.i-i.fr.fm/html/animechallenge.htm


• Vince Vidaurri - http://www.himelik.com/swift/cheapstick.htm


• Jasper Smith - http://www.sparksdesigns.co.uk/3d/cartoonrobot.htm


• Imagecyte - http://www.imagecyte.com/swift/rocker.html


• meowo - Entry 01, Entry 02


• minopharma - Entry 01, Entry 02


• James - Entry 01, Entry 02, Entry 03
, Entry 04

• Marcos - Entry 01, Entry 02, Entry 03, Entry 04


• Macus Knight - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/marcus.knight8/htmlTemplate.htm


• Cyberone - http://ministryofdoom.org/the-experiment/spew/


• Roberto Bevilacqua - http://www.erain.com/blog/files/rb_hometrainer.htm


• Malte Euler - http://me-raum.de/animation/


• BlinkOK - http://www.nlc.net.au/~oceana/beta/fiddlin.htm


• Roberto Bevilacqua - http://www.erain.com/blog/files/roberto.htm


• Mikko Haapoja - http://www.definecrew.com/animcontest/docrock.html


• Henk Visser - http://www.henkvisser.nl/animations/

1. Entries must be made with Swift 3D (any version).


2. Submissions must be in the form of a basic html page containing: your Swift 3D Vector (.swf) animation, name, website address and email (Download template here).


3. Your .SWF movie must be 450x250 pixels in dimension with a preloader (Download template here).


4. Your animation must consist of ONLY one 3D Humanoid performing its action(s) and ONLY one 3D Prop (if needed) . Your animation cannot include any other elements other than your hunamoid and your one prop. Entries that have extra elements will be disqualified. Elements that can't be in your animation include: images, voice overs, etc. Example prop elements that can be in your entry include: Golf club, beer bottle, cane, kite, etc..


5. Sound FX are encouraged. (No voice overs please)


6. No environments. Solid color or gradient color backgrounds only.


7. All work must be original.


8. Be as creative as you can with your humanoid. Again, please don't limit yourself to the actions that were suggested on this page.


9. Your entries should be posted in this Blog thread titled: "Animation Contest Entry - Your entry link"

If you have questions concerning the rules please email jfoley@erain.com

Judging:
Our Judges will observe the following elements:

1. Animation!!! Humanoids that have a smooth, fluid motion. Jerkiness and/or animation errors will be counted against.


2. Animation Difficulty. The level of difficulty in animating your humanoid to do specific acts.


3. Creativity & Originality. Clever, thought-out, smart, funny, painfully funny, ingenius, wierd, dangerous, story line.. whatever qualities your movie holds!


4. Render quality. Single Color Fill with Outlines and Shadows are recommended. Raster Animations are not recommended.


5. Overall quality. Your entry should maintain a high level of professionalism.

Prizes:
First Place: Swift 3D v4 and Optimaze!
Second Place: Swift 3D v4
Anyone with a qualifying entry will recieve a complimetary collection of high quality Swift 3D Models. (Model examples coming soon.)

Deadline:
November 2, 2004

Rules and conditions are subject to change.

As promised, our loyal Blue Streak Weblog followers are first in-line to get the news that Swift 3D v4 for the Mac has been let out of the Erain cage. This latest release contains many new enhancements to modeling, animation and workflow including:

- Top New Feature - Advanced 3D Modeling Environment
- 3D Bezier Path Animation Controls That Use Familiar 2D Concepts
- Vastly Improved Bitmap Texturing Controls
- Galleries for Storing 2D Shapes, 3D Models and Custom Animations
- Faster Viewport Rendering Through Apple Open GL Adoption
- Ability to Define Surface Areas for Rendered Outlines and Much More

Thank you for your patience. We are eager to see our creative-driven Swift 3D Mac community put Swift 3D v4 to work! Make sure to submit (submittals@erain.com) your awe-inspiring 3D for viewing in the new Erain.com User showcase (http://www.erain.com/community/examples/).

Enjoy!

Congrats to our Swift 3D Addict SiouxFire.

For the past few weeks now SiouxFire has been designing characters, environments and crafts for an animated short movie that is sure to be a hit. His retro sci-fi theme and dark scenes set the mood for a thrilling and entertaining animation. Learn more of SiouxFire's work-in-progress at www.SiouxFire.com



>>Here is the link<<



Click on the first link in the User Showcase.

I'm sure we'll be hearing back from SiouxFire in the near future with his final animation and for upcoming projects that he has in store!

Unfortunately, an error was found last night that has caused a minor delay in the release of v4 for the Mac. We apologize to those loyal followers of the blog that have been frequenting our site today, as well as those of you who have preordered v4 for the Mac and are itching to get it into your hands.

We're doing our best and we truly appreciate your patience while we iron out this final issue. The program will be released as soon as this item has been resolved and tested. Thanks!

In these days of things not being what they seem, it didn't surprise me to get a call from a skeptical Jeff Battema of Seattle, Washington about 5 minutes after I emailed him to notify him he won the September iPod mini giveaway. Especially since I received an email this morning saying that I had won an iPod. Haven't we all...

Well, it's true. We do give away big prizes to our Rainstorm subscribers with no strings attached. It's our way of saying thank you for reading our news and hopefully spreading the word of Electric Rain and Swift 3D to your friends.

Jeff, your iPod's on the way. The rest of you Rainstorm Subscribers, keep your fingers crossed and you might just win our first X-Box giveaway at the end of this month.

Beta Testing of Swift 3D V4 is now complete and we're in the final day of beta testing for Swift 3D Xpress. We anticipate a 10/14/04 release of each of these products. If you are an existing customer or have signed up to be notified of the Mac release, you will be contacted by email. However, this notification process can take up to one week as we stagger our mailings to regulate the demand on our servers. So, if you would like to be the first kid on the block to own Swift 3D V4 for the Mac, keep and eye on our site as early as tomorrow. You might find a surprise.

Existing Swift 3D Mac owners will receive Swift 3D Xpress free of charge when you upgrade to Swift 3D V4 for the Mac. New Mac customers may add-on a copy of Xpress for only $39 (regularly $129) during the Swift 3D V4 order process.

Thanks to all of our Mac customers for their support and patience. We know you're going to love the new release!

Do you have an oustanding Swift 3D model or animation that you would like to share with the 3D Community? If so, send your work to Submittals@erain.com and become an offical Swift 3D 'Addict'.

If your work is selected you will be crowned as our weekly Swift 3D 'Addict'. Your work will be featured in our Swift 3D Usershowcase where thousands will be able to view your creation!

Submit my work!
Please note that submissions need to be 300k or less.

This week I'll be sharing a character animation that I (jfoley) created with Swift 3D. In this example I have created a cartoon style character, exported with Single Color Fill, Shadows and Outlines. I animated my character with a run cycle and then added some graphics and music in Flash for a quick 'Introduction-type' sequence.

>>Here is the link<<


Click on the first link in the User Showcase.

I'm looking forward to seeing your crazy-cool submissions!

Congrats to our Swift 3D Addict Juan Perez on modeling a very clever robot.

Juan Perez is the winner of the prized first slot position in our User Showcase this week.

>>Here is the link<<


Click on the first link in the User Showcase.

Juan created his robot that he calls "Ojo" in Swift 3D v3. The hierarchy was set up nice an neat but, at the time it was lacking animation. I (jfoley) was granted permission from Juan to animate "Ojo" for the final output. In the end Juan and I came up with outstanding results in the end.

Lets say we have a Swift 3D character that we created and we want to add the logo that you see to the right onto the middle of the characters back and have it render in vector format.

Step 1. Take a screenshot of the back of your character / object. Using either Flash or Illustrator, place your object in a layer and then in a new layer (using the pen tool) make a path around the region where your vector map will be placed. When you're finished place your vector map inside the path as the picture in picture shows. Export your vector map combined with the path as an .AI or .EPS file.

Step 2. Import your file into Swift 3D. By default the vector map will be extruded.

Step 3. Select the vector map and move to the Advanced Modeler (AM). In the AM, ensure that your vector map is all one object (If it is in multiple pieces, select one of the groups and then right click on each of the different groups and select 'Combine with Selection'). Using faces, and the Left or Right Viewport, select the back and side faces and then delete them to get the results that the third picture shows.

Step 4. In the Scene Editor, bring both the object that your vector map will be applied to and the vector map into the AM. Using 'Combine with Selection', add the vector map mesh to your original object (Torso in my case). On the original object (torso), delete the poly goings that the vector map will replace. Next, weld the neighboring points from one object to another together as shown in the right image below. Note, before you being welding, try to align your vector map to the original object as best as you can.

Step 5. Make the appropriate surface group modifications to avoid any unwanted lines and adjust the colors of the resulting mesh as needed.

Final. Now render your object with vector output to view the final results.

Cheers!