I have not used Blender much while they have been updating from 2.79 to 2.8 and wow am I impressed.

Here is the new interface:

There are new tool icons, the ‘T’ key layout is completly different with just icons, the ‘N’ key panel has close to the same functionality. There are no layers anymore but collections making good sense and there are two new renderers, Eevee and workbench eevee, much like cycles is for your final renders as well as real time rendering in the viewport and workbench is for the viewport while modeling. Both are great additions.

My first course for Unity this year is “Creating 3D Environments”. I have had this course on my wish list for some time because it was quite expensive, about 150.00. It went on sale for the new year for 19.99. I jumped at the chance. The course was also recently upgraded for Blender 2.81. The first part of the course focused on the new interface and the basics of modeling. I have not forgotten much of that. Then there was an introduction to the Eevee render engine. At the end I added my own touches to the render. I added my own envronment texture, a 360 photo taken with the GroPro Max at my office downtown Tulsa, OK. I also added a different color to the plane the dice are sitting on with a little bit of reflections of the environment. I think Eevee is awesome. I took less than 10 seconds to render this out. The last time I made a render similar to this, a few batteries quite a few years back, the render took over 30 minutes to complete.

Insta360 has announced a new 360 camera. The Insta360 One R. I am hoping it will be out for sale on Tuesday. If it is I will snap it up on the way home. It is what they call an adaptive camera with the ability to convert from a 4K action camera with a front or rear facing screen depending on how ‘you’ set it up and then with a few quick changes it becomes a 5.6K 360 camera. This camera along with the GoPro Max may become my go to cameras always with me.

More textures coming up in the next chapters of this course.