We were just about to head out for lunch today and when we couldn’t get the door open. Looking through the small side glass panel on the side we saw this present at our studio front door! We were so excited, Jonathan repelled down the building with dental floss, Wes took a nap on the couch, Tim started drawing on the walls and Alessandro.. well Alessandro is in Rome, so we sent him a Skype Message about it. All while Jonathan was running back up the stairs to help get the door open.. With the door open we heard a grumble and.. (Ah, okay that was all fabricated and most likely not true. ) 
But in all seriousness, this is something we like to do each year around the holidays on the Blender Cookie. A way to say thank you for another rocking year and the support you guys have given us. It has been quite the ride this past year and our way to give a little more back.
You can mark it on your calendar to come back here and open it up on December 25th! A bit after midnight (-6GMT) we will open up the download for the present for you to open and see what is inside, and then you can post back here to the world what we got you for the holiday. Until then no sneaking a peak, shaking the present, or feeling how heavy it is. You may only look at it. (It is a digital thing)
View past year presents: 2010,
It is now time to open it up
So click on the download source files link at the top and open up the present. The file size is right around 365MB and feel free to tease others on what you got in the comments or blab on what it is. Thanks again guys and talk to yah after the new year!
After the new year we will post the contents out for the public to see.
Great stuff! Thanks!!!!
Thanks for the download – an interesting direction you are taking.
A number of years back, I used to build 3D stuff for the Blaxxun Community server – a 3D chat world/game environment. Basically it was modeling in VRML then adding scripting. A video of one of my creations is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my_I_AjW0R4&feature=context&context=C3f68afcUDOEgsToPDskKu_nN5_xuw_219gNiHqMIQ
As you watch the video, you will see the interactive hotspots with popups and doors – the cursor changes from a simple cross. And there are “area” hotspots that trigger the interaction with “Jack”
(Sorry about the video quality – still getting the hang of making good video, and the “fog” in this “world” did not show well.)
The Blaxxun Community server is long gone, and both the viewer and replacement server from Bitmanagement are not cheap. So I am very interested in where you will be taking the Blender/Unity combo.
I played with the Blender/Unity combo earlier this year – and it has potential. So, I’m looking forward to your development tutorials.
gryff
thanks so much! this looks great! i love that you guys are using blender with unity and putting out so many tutorials that put together the two.
happy christmas!
cheers!
Thank you CG Cookie and happy holidays.
Fantastic. I liked the coding video – wish I could type that fast in real time! You guys are at the top of your game.
Happy New Year
Where is the modeling vid of Melvin in blender ?
Impressive stuff. Thanks for sharing, and happy holidays!
I dont know what to do with the obj files. pictures of what I saw looks cool though and I can deff learn some tricks from seeing the uv layout and texturing. cyas
To bring the .obj into blender use file/import then choose wavefront(.obj). This will bring the obj file into your scene, then u will need to apply the targa file for texture. Hope this gets u there…
ty for tip
go mine. thank you.
*got
Thanks, Happy Xmas to You!
Thanks for pressy!
Awesome job guys on the tuts of 2011; looking forward to 2012′s
Nicholas
When do you use a bump map versus a normal map, or vice versa, in a game? Or decide to not use either and just use a diffuse map only?
Jeremy
Hey Jeremy,
A normal map will provide more accurate results than a bump map, especially when turning around the object a lot. Since bump and normal maps are quite cheap in performance cost (as opposed to, say, a parallax map), I’d suggest using them whenever you feel it could add some interesting detail to your object. =)
Hope that helped and happy new years!
-Patrick
Hey Patrick, firstly MC&HNY!
I have never heard of parallax mapping before did quick check it came into use in 2001!
Is this something that is game engine specific or can it be used in blender? if it can be used in blender is it worth using for things like stills for greater levels of detail or is it a big no no and stick with Normal maps?
Is there anyway to make a bump map into a normal map? I thought I recall doing a tutorial on Blendercookie.com that used a bump map image and a normal map was create out of the model/bump texture.
@sl1200mkii
Parallax mapping is something very specific and as far as I know it’s done on a per-engine basis and Blender doesn’t have it. I don’t know that it has any great benefit over traditional normal mapping and I think ultimatly the amount of detail will still be limited by the texture size.
Hey Atlantis base, thanks for jumping in
I thought it would be game engine specific, as its not something I’ve ever come across in blender.
Many thanks.
Gareth
@Jcdeighan
and your mesh is UV mapped you should be able to then bake a new normal map which would include the bump-map detail.
I may be wrong but if you have your bump map textures assigned and all is good i.e working bumps
But as I said I may be wrong. I’ll have a test now see whats what.
The above suggestion works might not be the best way but it works.
Hope this helps.
Gareth
Gareth I thought I saw that somewhere. I gotta test it out still. Have you tried it yet?
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy, yes tried it out while I was posting just to make sure.
Just mapped the default cube took a diffuse texture I made in filter forge made a super quick Bump map from that and wrapped it on my cube in blender > UV editor > new Image > Bake Normals (Tangent) via the render panel.
My results were not that great but it definitely works may need some tweaking to get finer and more accurate results. I suppose it all depends on quality of the original bump map, mine was quick and nasty!
Any probs let me know I’ll post you the .blend with it all set up.
Hope this helps.
Gareth
That’s great!
I was just thinking how could you use a normal map for something like a road that has a lot of grainy detail without having to sculpt every little crack and crevice in the road?
Seems like you could use a road bump map and then convert it to a normal map for better detail.
Jeremy
Guys! Awesome! Can’t wait to see more. Looks like a cool concept, and it will be great to watch the implementation.
As Always, great job cookie guys and thanks!
i got a pen
Thank you so much, you have learned me so many things,
theoretically though, because I need to do more tutorials and
watch less