Grrr…
Venoms Lab 3.5 out of 5
Thank you for this great in-depth review.
Review might not be so helpful, but your username gave me an idea for a Gears of War porn spinoff
(Gears of Whores… get it? There’s Call of Booty and various others as well. I hate my brain sometimes)
or a chance to give back to the hard working blender foundation…
Much of what he talked about can be used to improve an artist’s skill set. Plus he includes all of the files. Even a veteran blender head can learn from this DVD. I for one recommend it.
The following is a list of the video tutorials on the DVD.
1 - Firulo! - SubSurf Modeling
1.01. Meet Firulo!
1.02. Essential Modeling Tools.
2 - Korno! - Sculpt Tools
2.01. Setting up for Sculpt
2.02. Basic Sculpting tools
2.03. Brushes and Workflow
3 - Zanno! - Projection Painting:
3.01. Seams, what Seams?
3.02. Dude! you got a Tattoo!
4 - Merlin! - Cartoon Eyes
4.01. Cartoon Eye Modeling
4.02. Iris/Cornea Shading
4.03. Sclera Shading
4.04. Reflections
5 - Braka! - Particles Hair
5.01. Grooming Hair
5.02. Shading Hair
6 - Tibolino! - Compositing
6.01. Lighting
6.02. Simple Compositing
6.03. Fancy Compositing
6.04. RenderLayers
7 - Fraka! - Shading Nodes
7.01. Material Nodes
7.02. Texture Nodes
7.03. Fraka’s Nodes
8 - Carnerito! - RealTime GLSL Shading
8.01. Color Ramps
8.02. Lighting with Nodes
8.03. Cloning NormalMaps
9 - Antonio! - Cloth Simulation
9.01. Basic Steps
9.02. Cloth Settings
9.03. Antonio’s Cloth
10 - Durano!
Complete Character modeling timelapse,
more than 80 minutes of modeling
at almost realtime (speeded up x2).
At the time of writing I have only completed the first 4 chapters. I enjoyed the sculpting chapter the most so far. The videos are short and to the point he shows you specific tools, methods and workflow. I have no problem understanding him. He is able to clearly explain concepts in a easy to follow manner.
Understand that this DVD is not intended to make you a master blenderer(that can only be done with constant determined effort and endless practice – basically hard work). It is intended to give you a good foundation in nearly all aspects of blender’s use.
Mastering the concepts and tools that this DVD presents will make you a expert at blender (but that is up to you).
Last but not least, remember that the perchase of this DVD(Venom’s Lab) you are helping the Blender Foundation. I hope I do not need to explain what that will do.
Cheers
Sorry about that, i typed a reveiw but my net dis-connected and I lost the whole thing so I was pissed off bad. SOOOO i was really cranky on that one.
Well, for cartoons it would be good.
I meant to say.
Its a good DVD, cool to have for anyone that wants to support blender of course…
AND everyone loves a big multi-shelf library of CG books galore so why not. Its not really my style but I am thinking this DVD will mentor alot of people with a cartoony style and I want to hand it down to a younger member of my family to MENTOR them into the industry. I guess im in my mid-20’s so I’m more into the gore and mad details I get out of zBrush and Maya… but blender was the first 3d app I really learned and I have all the DVDs and books purchased from either amazon or the eShop so I guess I was just PO’d about losing my POST and what not.
But this DVD is aimed towards a more childish animation form which i guess is “cuter” than the usual creatures and bloodspray in modern games and nextgen animated film.
The teaching is great and easy to follow for anyone and the lectures are pretty extensive. Plus its cheap and looks cool on your shelf for when you feel like you want to hone the younger artists braincells on a long babysitting venture or your kid-brother. So pick it up for your collection and just know that its kinda aimed towards begginners.
You could always torrent it and buy it if you want it. Actually buy it cause it looks cool and kids will dig it
:yes:
I am almost 30 but i think i will always love the cartoony style. But if you get the workflow ideas and the techniques described, you can apply them to more “mature” stuff if you want. I just got my DVD and i pretty much watched all movies allready. I know most of the modelling/rigging/animation stuff, but not so much shading/compositing/rendering. These areas are well described. Nice stuff. Blender is amazing!
the art comes from the artist not the software
But this DVD is aimed towards a more childish animation form which i guess is “cuter” than the usual creatures and bloodspray in modern games and nextgen animated film.
it doesn’t have to be cartoony you can use the techniques to create the effect that you want - use your imagination
but pixar turn “cute” into $Millions
No one at Pixar would be over 20 with that reasoning;) To give a fair review you have to look at what the aim of the project is and if the goal is achieved…
Your right the cute cartoony stuff is where the money is at i guess.
pretty much venoms lab follows the KIS , keep it simple cartoon style and lots of shading to get you going on the software where you can then apply your art.
FUN STUFF
i hope it gets enjoyed and gets alot of people ranting.
hopefully nobody seeds the torrent so it will get purchased for the whole $30 and get some better features on blender.
after i purchased maya, sorry for sounding arrogent, i usually ue blender on my linux machine with ubuntu64 to mess around, do box models, and maybe concept art. i still plan to support the community by buyin the movies and dvd’s just to have
I just finished watching all the videos and am very pleased I bought it!
There is a lot of cool stuff demonstrated in this DVD that opens up many possibilities in my own mind. I have been using blender for a few years now and these movies show me things I did not know existed. It should not be too hard to translate these techniques to what ever style you are into.
Well worth the price.
I haven’t seen all of it yet, but I found two tutorials which will take practice to get where I can use it the way I want to. Certainly not a real begginner training as far as textures are concerned. There are lots of composite node things on it that I don’t understand very well. So I might get a lot out of it If I put the work into it.
JF
The biggest problem with Blender are the consequences of Blender being an “inhouse product”. There are a lot of features about which only a small insider group knows. To get the information you have either work really hard or have the lucky to belong to the group close related to Blender development team. Partly it is about the lacking development strategies. This DVD contais a lot of information, but I’m not quite sure if it deepens or lowers the knowledge barrier between “insiders” and “outsiders”. Using Blender is a source of frustration, but the same time it is the only reasonable, existing possibility for a hobby 3D artist to get into a 3D graphics.
I have received DVD on Friday and watched it fast through weekend. And I have to say it is great!!!
Mainly Pablo is touching most of Blender areas and DVD has really great value for the very complexity.
It have to be said that DVD is not for beginners.
But just for me personally this is the best of all DVD released by Blender Foundation (sorry, I know that is not fair to compare them.).
So I see that this video is definately worth getting, but what about any of the other videos or books? Any reccomendations for a newb! I’m already halfway through Blender For Dummies.
I’ve thought of investing some time this summer into learning Blender (been using it sporadically last few years, but nothing really serious). And I dig “cartooney”. 
Would the Venom’s Lab be a good investment (ignoring Blender Foundation support and low price)?
For all I can tell, it seems good for modelling and stuff. How does it stand on animation part?
I preordered it and watched it awhile ago. Some really great tips in there.
@Pericius - He doesn’t cover animation. The Character Animation dvd by William is also very good. I’d recommend that.
Well, I just finished watching a few chapters as my copy just arrived in, and I think this is very easy to understand even for a noob if they just take some time to familiarize themselves with the interface and where things generally are. Then the rest is just sit back and enjoy.
Great work Venom! It was a nice investment.