Why ? Because I’m still using Yafaray only, because it’s great and efficient and also because I didn’t found any other initiative like mine. So I guess it’s the best one so far

Of course such a database will always sucks unless it’s full of great shaders, so I uploaded some from my latest project, the mighty Hennessey Venom GT cab’ concept. I also fixed some bugs and I’m now looking for new features.

The link didn’t changed : http://yafaray.thomasbaron.net. Spread the word, browse the site and feel free to report any critic or feature request you may have as a comment below. Thanks !

Here’s the 2010 official contest for this summer : SMCars goes topless !!!

The idea is really simple : model and render a roof-less car. Any roofless car can apply : convertible (no matter soft or hard top), targa, spider, roadster, etc. You can even make your own from an existing model, or design an all-original concept.

Head right now to the SMCars Goes Topless thread to discover the full set of rules and starting thinking about your entry now !

I don’t use LuxRender but Yafaray. This renderer is the successor of the well-known Yafray, and it’s a full rewrite to achieve great speed and nice functionnalities.

I thought : “It’s a shame a famous renderer like Yafaray doesn’t have a shaders database on its own”. So I started to create one from scratch this morning.

As of now it’s already the 2nd version online : check it out now : http://yafaray.thomasbaron.net

This is a really fresh project, so don’t expect to see it full of great shaders at this stage. Current goal is to enhance the site to achieve something suitable for daily use. Features are, as of writting :

• Free accounts opened right now
• Download a standardized scene to achieve consistent previews
• Upload your shader easily
• Browse the existing categories
• Create your own categories
• Use the built-in search engine

For an upcoming tutorial, I created a wire cage of my C5 Tourer (that is, the wagon) using this blueprint :So I studied a lot of DTM reference pictures, and modified the wire cage to turn it into a DTM Coupé.

Of course I changed some stuff during modeling, and more will be changed until the contest comes to an end. Here’s the current state of the model :

Ever dreamed of driving a race-car? I know I have… How about designing your own? If that’s a big 10-4 for you too, than SMC has got an engine-oil-soaked treat for you…

this particular SMCars.net Contest is asking you to do the following; Pick a car, or design your own, and tailor it towards a certain motorsport. That is it. We want this Contest kept simple to allow your imaginations to run wild and naked throughout SMC. We don’t want them too wild and naked though, so the only limits are technology to the present day, so no light-speed hovering space jet-ski racers, mkay? Other than that, go for gold!!

Some examples of what we’re looking for? A Lamborghini Countach modified to compete is the Paris-Dakar Rally, a Fiat 500 stripped and suped to race in the SuperGT leagues, a Honda Civic made to break the land-speed record… Getting the idea??

The goal is clear, and the contenders brought some crazy projects :

• Volkswagen Passat Wagon with Pike’s Peak style
• Holden Commodore intended for Dakar
• Mitsubishi Lancer for street racing
• Zagato Perana as a FIA GT
• Toyota Hilux as a drift machine

And for the first time for SMC, there is not only medails to win, but your choice a single die-cast model from Die-Cast Model Cars to the value of $100 !

To learn more about it : http://www.smcars.net/forums/contest-forum/30321-real-world-racer.html. To see all the entries : http://www.smcars.net/forums/real-world-racer/. To engage : www.smcars.net.

PS : Of course I’m in…

This model once won the “Light is Right” contest at www.SMCars.net, but only with one vote ahead !

You’ll find it in the Free Models page, as well as my previously released car, the Marcos 1800 GT.

A .zip file is available for download. It contains a .blend file, which is a Blender file. Download and install Blender first to read the file. The .blend file is organized using layers :

• Layer #1 contains body panels and interior.
• Layer #2 contains chassis with technical stuff attached to it.
• Layer #3 contains wheels.
• Layer #4 is just a test of a chassis with welds on it. No need for it, only layers 1 to 3 are required to gather the full model.
• Layer #5 are my blueprint box and a wire representation of the chassis.

All required shaders are included. Please pay attention that this project was conducted using YafRay 0.0.9, so it won’t render “out of the box” properly without it (YafaRay won’t do the job here)

Feel free to post your thought about it below, please just keep in mind I didn’t have enough time to complete the model : for example, the engine is missing.

With the new blog engine online, I’ll allow anyone to see stats for the site. As you can see by your self on the stats page, there’s a big hole in visits for April and May.

Because of inattention, I lost statistics for the site for almost whole April.  Unfortunately, it was a really good month (more than 8000 page views for about 4500 unique visitors). That is, my best month so far.

The hole for May has several origins : my wife gave me a second little marvel (welcome to the world, Gaspard !), we all moved to a new house and I started a brand new job. So the server was down for some weeks.

I hope I will regain soon a constant growth as I was used to for more than a year. Thanks you, every visitor, for viewing my work and tutorials. Keep coming here, there is some new tutorials to come, just like my latest one : realistic light setting in Blender ! ]]> http://www.thomasbaron.net/2007/05/new-site-migration-and-data-loss/feed/ 0 http://www.thomasbaron.net/2007/05/welcome-to-the-new-pixelsoratoms/ http://www.thomasbaron.net/2007/05/welcome-to-the-new-pixelsoratoms/#comments Fri, 18 May 2007 09:02:21 +0000 Tom http://www.thomasbaron.net/?p=269 I’m glad and happy to introduce the new version of my site.

The previous one has been powered by WordPress for the full first year. It’s time to say good bye to it, welcome to my own personal blog engine. It’s developed with CakePHP and MySQL, using Eclipse and PDT.

In a very Web2.0 fashion, I consider the site as beta. I would be very happy to heard of any bug you can encounter here. Please also don’t hesitate to report me any idea / suggestion you can get.

I hope the next year will show as much as progress for my skills as the previous one.

Thanks for reading !

Both are from Matt Ebb, you can show his site at http://mke3.net/.

The first one is using the plain old material system (that is, no nodes). It use a standard shader with large diffuse area and a specular ramp to add small high specular spots on the large diffuse area. Here’s his post about it.

The second is using the 2.42-added node system. Here’s an introduction about it (also mentionning Matt Bet’s work). He posted here about it.

In the next few days I will be experimentating with both moves. The second is very impressive, but imcompatible with Yafray. So I’ve either to play with Blender renderer (and Ambient Occlusion settings), or to use the first method in Yafray.

So some new renders of the DB9 will be posted soon !

Sorry for the inconvenience.