New image from "A Polish Winter"

Click image to view larger

A Polish Winter -Colour grading in Blender 3D

Click on image to view larger.

Just a simple demonstration of the importance of colour grading images used in film production.
The image on the left is with grading while the image on the right is the unaltered original image.

A Polish Winter - image

Another still from "A Polish Winter".

The film is our latest short film and is set in Poland in the post 2nd World Wat period.
The still features the lead character - a young boy - but there is no background rendered, as yet.
Surprisingly, the films animation is rendering pretty fast and colour grading of the animated frames is very smooth also!


Click on the image to view larger.

A Polish Winter - new image

A new image from "A Polish Winter"

Click to enlarge

New film Update

Here's an image from the latest short 3D animated film were working in.

The film is called "A Polish Winter" and is set in Eastern Europe in the 1940's.
The young boy you see in the image is the only character in the movie .

As I've said in a previous posting, this film is a major departure from "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique" in terms of storyline and tone.
A Polish Winter is a moving tribute to the child victims of the Holocaust and indeed all children who were murdered in Nazi extermination camps during World War 2.

On a more technical note, A Polish Winter uses a different style from our previous films. The characters eyes are like little, black stones: for some reason we were just drawn to this kind of look for the boy. It makes him seem more innocent, possibly.
The lighting is still being thought out , but it will be more dreamy and ethereal - by that, I mean that the film will focus less on crisp details and more on an overall sense of mood and spirit to reflect the tone and substance of the tale.

Snow will play a major part of the film's design but we don't want to get too bogged down in a 100% realistic depiction of snow, but more an overall sense of feeling again.

We've done an awful lot of reading about the Nazi extermination camps (particularly the Action Reinhardt camps in Poland) in the build up to A Polish Winter. But this film does not aim to depict the actual camps themselves but to reflect more on the human loss of life that took place in those evil places.

More updates and images soon.

You can contact Dwarfed Films here with any questions or simply leave a comment on the site.


Shane

New images from new movie

Here's a 3D model of a cattle train car from our latest short film which is in the pre-production stage at the moment.

More details about the movie will be revealed over the coming weeks.

New Movie in Production

This is a character model from our latest short film which is in production.
The image shows four facial expressions to test the character mesh for any irregularities.

We're going in a different direction with this one compared to Mr. Humpfninkel (which was a comedy) and To Shoot A Rurf (which was a surreal tale).

We can't give you any plot details at the moment apart from saying that the movie is set in eastern Europe in the 1940's and concerns a young boy.

Follow along with the entire production as we post images and a breakdown of the entire production/editing/musical scoring on this our latest project.

Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique - Complete!

Yes the film is completed!

A lot of hard work and dedication to get to this stage. We'd like to say a big thank you to our voice actor on the short, Sherman Alpert from New York.

We'll try and upload a lo-res version of the movie if possible too.

Sony Acid Pro and Vegas are crap!

I don't know how many times Acid Pro and Vegas have let us down. Sony are great making hardware but when it comes to software they are pretty weak.
Very unreliable and unstable.
Crashes in the middle of doing very simple audio edits.

And what makes it worse is the fact that it sometimes (more than just 'sometimes' actually!) creates bad backups that will not load!!!!!

Unfortunately there is just so much of "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique" already pieced together in Sony Vegas that we can't start again in another editor.
Our initial aim was to do all the animation and video editing in Blender 3D and the cleanup and sync in Reaper - a shareware product. But Reaper is weak on it's visual capabilities. It simply cannot cope with video playback properly - which is a terrible pity because Reaper is probably the very best audio editor I've ever used. Fast, reliable and well designed.

I really wish Sony could've spent more time creating a competent editor rather than focusing on overloading their software with unnecessary frills and gimmicks.
They should take a long, hard look at Open Source software to appreciate the value of reliability and stability over cosmetics.


Shane

Mr. Humpfninkel - Update Music

We've been real busy lately with composing the score to "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique".

I've mentioned in an earlier posting how much more difficult it is to compose the music for a comedy as opposed to a drama or horror. Those other genre's are more forgiving when it comes to the soundtrack whereas a comedy requires much more thought and effort.
Think abut it - it's easier to play a bunch of random notes on a keyboard/synthesizer and come up with an acceptable horror score. You are more likely to hit minor keys and 'bum notes' that add to a creepy atmosphere.

But comedy needs mostly major keys with playoff minor notes at various intervals to break up and enrich the sound.

Over the weekend we were watching TV and the Leslie Nielsen "Mr. Magoo" live action movie was on. Terrible film but it features a fantastic comedy score. It really gave us a lot of inspiration. If a film that bad can manage to salvage the occasional (very occasional!) laugh purely through the use of clever musical interludes, it just goes to show how incredibly important having good music is.

I always say that a movie is 20% visuals and 80% sound!

Eircom are crap!

Ok, this isn't connected with film, but I just have to say that Eircom are crap.
Eircom is the main telephone/internet supplier in Ireland. For years they had a complete monopoly of the market and even when other service providers entered the market a few years back, Eircom still managed to have a stranglehold.

They are constantly telephoning us with various 'great' offers and promotions yet when it comes to the basics of actually supplying a reliable service they fail miserably (not that their competitors - I use that term loosely as many of these companies are spin-offs of Eircom).

Recently they have been updating their webmail service. All well and good, but not when the service can be off for a whole day while they mess about!

Internet and broadband speeds in Ireland are laughably slow and I wish they'd get their act together and sort it out.

Mr. Humpfninkel - Another Update

Here’s another update on the film “Mr. Humpfninkel’s Sales Technique”.

Attached are some new frames from the short animated movie.

The movie is being rendered in 1920 X 1080 Hi Definition – which is the first production we’ve used the format on so far.

It makes a massive difference to the output quality, as I’m sure you can guess.

“To Shoot A Rurf” was rendered at a DVD PAL standard scale of 720 X 576 and although the overall image quality was good, I feel that it would have really benefited from being rendered the way “Mr. Humpfninkel…” is being made.

The image quality is so clear and sharp and there is no loss of picture details – which is so important when there has been so much effort put into little details throughout the film.

Even if something is only going to be on screen for less than a second it should be clearly seen - otherwise what the hell was the point in putting it there in the first place??!!!

On the audio front, lots of time has been going into producing a quality soundtrack.

“Mr. Humpfninkel…” is a completely different feel to “To Shoot A Rurf” or even “Opera Baby” and the music need to both reflect this and really contribute to the overall mood of the movie.

“To Shoot A Rurf” was very sparse aurally except maybe for the big singing number in the night Club sequence towards the end. Overall it was a very sombre movie in the audio department.

“Mr. Humpfninkel…” is a jolly little movie and writing ‘jolly music’ or a ‘comedy score’ is much harder to achieve successfully than a horror or a drama.

Until the next update,

Shane

To Shoot A Rurf at Animation Bloc Party New York 2008

I've already mentioned this before in one of the other posts I'm sure but I'll give it a proper posting here now.

Our 3D Animated dark, psychological short To Shoot A Rurf is showing at Animation Bloc Party in September.

If you've been following this blog (or it's main blog over at www.toshootarurf.blogspot.com) you'll be aware that the film was produced using Blender 3D and other Open Source software in a period of 6 months.
The film has screened at a host of festivals and events worldwide, and was given detailed features in both Animation World Network and Directors Notes.


If you're in the area you should go and check it out!

Mr. humpfninkel - More Images

Some new images from the Short films "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sale's Technique".

To Shoot A Rurf at Animanima Serbia Film Festival

To Shoot A Rurf is playing at the Serbian Animation Film Festival Animanima in September.

The festival runs from Sept 10th to 13th.
I just scanned down through the lineup and there is some excellent films being shown there.

If for some reason you happen to find yourself in Serbia around that time, then I'd highly recommend going along to the screenings.





Shane

Humpfninkel New Image

New image.
Look at the little guy waving. Nice!

More images form Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique

Some more images from the short film.

Mr. Humpfninkel - Old Folks Home model Location

The Old Folks Home location from the Mr. Humpfninkel short film.
Creepy looking, aint it?!

Rendering out composited frames for the film takes time and isn't helped by the fact that each shot has to be checked a number of times for colour correction on different monitors to ensure everything looks exactly as it should.
You can't trust computer monitors - especially laptop screens. The colour difference can vary greatly from massively oversaturated to dull and lifeless!


More images to follow.

We've also been very busy composing and recording the soundtrack for the film. Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique is gonna have an orchestral score as opposed to the dark and eerie music in To Shoot A Rurf.

By the Way, you cancathc To SHoot A Rurf at the Animation Bloc Party in New Tork this month (July). Visit Animation Bloc Party's website for more details.

Shane

Mr. Humpfninkel - Images

Been difficult to connect to Blogger.com lately. Why is it so damn slow????

Anyway, Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique is coming along nicely.

Here's some more images from the film.



NB: Compare the above image with the similar un-graded image from the previous post.
Colour grading makes a huge difference to the final output file. The colours are richer and you may notice the enhanced sense of depth of field in the image above compared to the previous versions.

Mr. Humpfninkel - new image

Here's another image from the film.

Mr. Humpfninkel - another image

Interior location for the 3D short animated film "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique".

Entire movie created using Blender 3D.

OSCAR Character on Blendernation.com

Just checked Blnder.org and Blendernation websites today and spotted the free fully rigged character OSCAR I made available is featured on them.

You can visit the Blendernation website here http://www.blendernation.com/2008/04/17/oscar-free-rigged-character/

Go ahead and download OSCAR. He's free for both commercial and personal use.

Shane

Mr. Humpfninkel: New Bus Model

Here are some images from Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique of the bus model.
The previous bus model I created was crap, to be honest!
This one is much better.
Modelled in Blender 3d.
The lighting in these mages is a bit rubbish and you can see the crappy approximate ambient occlusion artifacts. But these are just quick renders to check how the model was shaping up.

And it looks much better than the old version!

Shane

Mr Humpfninkel: Napoleon Costume Early Test

An image of Mr. Humpfninkel in a Napoleon Bonaparte-style costume!
The costume is un-textured so far - that's why it looks rough.
Rendered on a gradient background and with flat lighting.

Mr Humpfninkel: Wearing a gaz mask while vacuuming vomit!

The heading pretty much describes what's going on here, I suppose.
It's the lead character form our latest animated offering, "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique", displaying his vacuum cleaner product in all it's 'glory'.
Why is he wearing a gas mask, you ask?
Well, why not!!!

Bcakgrounds are being rendered seperately in multiple layers so this is just an animation still with an alpha channel.


More images to follow.

Mr Humpfninkel Short Film Update: Blender Fluid Sim

In our latest animated short Mr. Humpfninkel’s Sales Technique, the title character (an inept door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman) is required to get sick. Yep, that’s right – vomit!

We initially intended to achieve this using Metaballs but then changed our minds and went with Blender’s fluid simulation instead.

He reason for this was the quality and realism of the FX. Our initial scepticism was based on the sometimes fiddly and random nature of the fluid simulator when we’ve used it before (We used it for the liquid pouring from the Rurf bottle in To Shoot A Rurf, but used metaballs for blood, the ‘mirror snake’ and a plane multi-subdivided and with a wave modifier for the river in the ear canal sequence)

Here are some early tests.

The first shows some gloopy vomit (the render is ultra-lo resolution) lit using approximate ambient occlusion and a single lamp.

The second shows a quick and dirty test (using open GI renderer - taht's why it looks crappy) of Mr. Humpfninkel getting sick. I know the image is small and very lo-res, but you should be able to make out that the vomit follows the movement of his head and his body deflects the flow of the vomit also.

All this talk of vomit is making me queasy!

More images and updates to follow soon.

By the way, Blogger doesn't seem to like Animated gif's so instead I use http://tinypic.com
to host them and link them to Blogger so that they display correctly on the site.

Mr Humpfninkel's Sales Technique images

Some images of Mr Humpfninkel from our latest animated short.
Blocking in all the actiona at the moment after sysnching up a fair amout of the dialogue.
More details and images to follow.

To Shoot A Rurf featured in Animation World Magazine

Our film To Shoot A Rurf is featured in this months Animation World Magazine.

It gets reviewed in the “Fresh From The Festivals” section.

An image from the film is also used as one of the main images on the front page of this months site.

AWN.com (Animation World Network) and is the biggest and best animation website on the net and they are responsible for Animation World Magazine, VFX World Magazine and the A.I.D.B (Animation Industry Database).

Here's the opening from that review:

Ever have one of those nights where you're just trying to sober yourself up enough to avoid a terrible hangover the next day, but you inadvertently take some mind-altering medication and are forced to confront the deepest, darkest recesses of your own soul instead? This film is kind of like that.

The review is by Andrew Farago, who is the gallery manager and curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum and the creator of the weekly online comic serial The Chronicles of William Bazillion.

You can read the review in full here:

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3590&page=2




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Salesman Short film: new image and details

New image form our latest short.
Named "Mr Humpfninkel's Sales Technique", the film follows the disastrous adventures of salesman Mr. Humpfninkel (pictured) as he goes door to door trying to sell vacuum cleaners.

The movie is quite obviuosly a demented comedy!

More images and details to follow shortly.

3D World Magazine DVD films

Busy making our comedy short film at the moment and have’n t been posting as much as we’d like to lately.

Image to and further details to come!

Anyway, we’ve been looking at the “Indie 50”, the DVD of short 3D animated films, which came with this month’s 3D World Magazine.

Highly recommend checking out the magazine and the enclosed shorts.

Lots of variety: the good, the bad and the downright ugly!

I won’t mention the bad ones – it’s all personal choice and opinion, I suppose – but I will recommend the ones that really impressed both myself and Paula.

“The Itch” – comedy genius.

“The Last Knit” – excellent.

“Birthday Boy” – academy award nominated short which I’m sure many of you will already have heard of.

“Ego” – absolutely amazing animation.

“The Wolf Man” – hilarious and completely bonkers!

There are others that impressed in terms of visuals and ideas (such as Tim Tom, Dragon Slayer, After You and a few notable others) but the ones mentioned above are really top quality.

Hey, don’t trust us – go judge for yourself by checking out these films online or borrowing a copy of the DVD from somebody. Or you could stop being a miser and actually purchase a copy of 3D World Magazine!.

Using The Gimp on Windows Vista

Anyone who intends to use The Gimp on their new Vista computer may become frustrated when they can't get the program to launch and it just seems to hang for ages trying to load fonts. Many will grow impatient and throw their computer out the window. Some may even curse The Gimp and refuse to use it on their lovely new machine.

But fret not! The solution is simple.
The problem lies somewhere in The Gimp trying to access Vista's fonts when it first loads. All you have to do is wait a few minutes (varies, but should take no more than 5 minutes) and The Gimp will load up as good as new. And don't worry, after this initial long loading time, The Gimp is set and ready to load up almost up really fast the next time you start her up.

Shane
www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com

PS: I had this 'problem' a few months back and wouldn't use The Gimp on Vista. Instead I started using Paint.net.
Paint.net is really good but it just doesn't have all the image editing abilities that The Gimp has.

Short Animated Film Needs Actor

Dwarfed Films are producing another short 3D animated film, this time a comedy about a door to door salesman.
The role requires one male actor with a North American accent. We do not require any other actors for any other parts.
The film will be approximately 2 - 2.5 minutes long.
This will be an unpaid position but it is a great opportunity to show your comedy prowess and may lead to future paid work.
Actor will recieve credit and copy of the completed film.
We do not need a bunch of CV's and headshots - but we do want funny, smart people with great acting ability and vocal talents!

TIPS TO REMEMBER:

• When recording, speak across the microphone rather than in to it!
• It's an animated short but we're not looking for comedy/"Muppet-type" vocals.
  
• Don't try to be wacky. Be yourself and follow the direction in the PDF sample.

Requirements:

• You will need an audio recording software program such as Audacity (freedownload @ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ )
• A reasonable quality directional microphone.
• A quiet area to record in.
• A file compression program such as 7Zip (free download @ www.7zip.org) or Winzip or Winrar.

NOTE: If chosen for the role in this animated film, all your future
recordings for the part will be done in this manner – so sound quality
is very important. If your sound output is noisy, crackly or fuzzy please
do not submit for consideration as you will not be selected.


Download the Audition Sample script PDF from here
http://www.mediafire.com/?e2jycdly9nz


If you don't already have a PDF viewer you can download
the free Foxit PDF viewer from http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
or Adobe Acrobat Reader from www.adobe.com/acrobat.

Follow the instructions contained in the sample script.

When you have completed recording, do the following:

• Convert your recordings from .Wav to .MP3 format.

• Add a text file (.txt format or a Word .doc or PDF) including your name and contact details.

• Compress these files into a single .7zip, .Zip or .Rar archive using yourcompression program. FILES MUST BE NO BIGGER THAN 2 MB (Thats 2 megabytes max). Any files larger than 2 MB will not be considered.
  

• Email Dwarfed Films with a link directing us to where to download your file. http://mediafire.com/ provide a free file hosting service.
  

• DO NOT EMAIL YOUR FILE DIRECTLY TO DWARFED FILMS.

• Successful candidates will be contacted after the selection process.

* NOTE: Visit http://www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com for details and advice on
submitting your audition files.


All images, names, “sample script” and “Dwarfed Films” are the COPYRIGHT © of Dwarfed Films 2003-2008.
Unauthorised usage of this documant and any images, names,“sample script”and “Dwarfed Films” is strictly prohibited without written permisssion from the authors.

The 10 Minute Blender Particle Hair Tutorial

I've made a simple PDF tutorial for using the new Jahka particle system in Blender.
The previous .EXE tutorial I made and provided before on this site was Ok-ish but this new one is far better!
The file size is about 650kb and deals with making basic hair material, emitting hair particles and then rendering layers so that you can render the mesh model and the particles seperately and then composite them later in Blender's sequencer.


Also, this tutorial is based on the latest version of the particle system as used in the Blender 2.45 SVN AAO build available on www.graphicall.org

You can download the PDF tutorial here
http://www.mediafire.com/?cjdnjllzotz

Any questions or comments leave 'em on the site.

Shane

Edit 23/Jan/2008: This is a newer version of the PDF Tutorial provided in a compressed .Rar format. It includes more detail and tips.

Edit 03/Feb/2008: OK, here's something I just realised whilst testing the latest Blender SVn Build from www.graphicall.org.
In a note at the end of the rendering section of my "10 Minute Blender Particle Hair Tutorial" PDF file, I wrote this:

"You might have a few problems when moving from rendering one layer to another.
For example, during my tests when I'd finished rendering the Mesh only shot and moved on to do the
Hair only, the wrong shot would render. The only way to rectify this was by restarting Blender and
rendering the Hair shot again seperately. A strange bug - probably."

Well, ignore that statement! The solution to this is very simple and I have given myself a slap for not figuring it out sooner.
All you have to do is this:

Instead of selecting the "Single" button in the Render Tab (in order to only render the selected render layer) - don't select it at all.
Just make sure that you click the little correction marker beside your layer name to "disable/enable this Render Layer".
Of course, make sure you only choose the layer(s) you want to render in that particular pass.
That's it. Simple really.

Check it out by doing a quick test by rendering "mesh only" first. Then in render window press J key to view other buffer. Now select a "hair only" render pass and press F12 to render. When this is done, press J key in the render window to compare the two shots by toggling between them.

Now you shouldn't have any problems.

Shane
www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com

Blender Approximate AO Build TESTS

Some things I've noticed so far in Blender 2.45 AAO SVN Build:

*Obviously the new "Approximate Ambient Occlusion". Did a few simple tests. No speckles as in ray-traced AO, so more suitable for animation.
As for speed/quality - need to do more tests on it.
There is a noticeable difference in render times when doing simple tests with the included very basic scene of a dome shape on top of a spire with some curved wires sprouting from it. The scene has is lit by a single ray-traced shadow casting Lamp.
In these tests, the New AO renders over 37 times faster than the traditional method. There is a definite lowering in quality in the smoothing from light to shadow, and dark areas appear 'darker' than in the regular AO example. But the speed is a great improvement - particularily for animation.
Haven't tried it with hair particles yet.


The image above shows a comparison between regular AO and the newer type one approximate AO version. The scene is a simple setup with a single Lamp with ray ray-traced shadows enabled. The 'model' is just a couple of simple meshes that I 'discombobulated' and then added a few curves.
Click on image to view larger.

*When adding a plane in front view mode, it is added as if in top view mode. This is not a Bug - go to options window and in "Edit Methods" tab you can alter how New objects are added.

*New sequencer button controls are available in the buttons panel.

*Some nice python scripts added, such as Auto Masonry Script (for making stone walls with windows and doorways); Blender Measurement tool and a few others that could be pretty useful.

*Added a MPEG2 file to sequencer and it slowed everything down to a standstill and became unusable. Eats alal the memory. Something came up on screen about 'failed to make correct lib" or something like that. Just a problem with FFMPEG on this build, I think.

*To go to UV selcet mode you need to enter it by choosing "edit" and selceting "texture" view. It's been this way for a while now in blender builds since official 2.45 version. Annnoying at first but makes more sense when you get used to it. More intuitive.

*Frame/Data stamp buttons are available in Render Buttons panel. Handy.

*Don't know how dependable this version is although it hasn't crashed as many times as the earlier new Particle patch version. Again, will need to use more to find out.

I might add more notes when I try more tests. Or then again I might not. All depends on what way the wind blows, I suppose....

Shane

NOTE:You can download the new builds from www.graphicall.org
Search for the "Approximate Ambient Occlusion" builds or "AAO"

****EDIT: The pciture accompanying this article has been changed from yesterdays. The new image shows a comparison between the 'old' AO and the newer AAO which turnes out (in this example) to be 37 times faster when rendering. Yes, thats 37 times faster!!!****

The 15 essential Freeware Software Programs you should download immediately

The 15 essential Freeware Software Programs you should download immediately:
*************************************************************
It's the start of the year, and what better way to begin 2008 than with a round-up of the best Freeware out there waiting to be downloaded. The 15 programs below are all fully functioning versions of Free software with no expiry time-limits or annoying pop-up ads. They have proven to be reliable and secure - in many cases such as Blender, Firefox and IrfanView they have shown themselves to be outstandingly dependable.
***************************************

1: Blender 3D: A Free Open Source 3D modelling and animation software. Import/Export to 3DS, OBJ, LWO, DXF, VRML, Collada and others. Files can be saved in native .blend format which saves all data including animation IPO's, models, armatures, materials, etc.
Softbody and hardbody Physics integration. Blender also includes Game Creation ability and creation of .exe format games.
Inbuilt renderer is very fast and good but Blender also supports other external renders such as Yafray. Very good UV unwrapping abilities. Includes a very competent video/audio sequencer editor that supports FFMPEG and export to many formats. Think MAYA/3DS MAX but with some more extras and zero pricetag! http://www.blender.org

2: The Gimp: Free Open Source image manipulation/editor. Basically a free version of Photoshop! Supports unlimited layers, alpha channels, multiple export formats. http://www.thegimp.org

3: Audacity: Free Open Source audio editor/recorder. Export to Wave, Ogg, MP3 formats. Multiple effects and filters. Rip audio CD's. http://www.audacity.sourceforge.net

4: Psycle: Audio creation tracker. Uses VST plugins. Exports to WAV format. http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/


5: IrfanView: Free Image viewer/editor. Supports multiple formats such as the usual Targa, PNG, JPEG, BMP formats as well as video files such as MPEG, Quicktime .MOV, WMV, etc. Supports creation of .Exe slidshows and presentations. Image editing not nearly as extensive as The Gimp but you quickly crop, resize images with ease. http://www.irfanview.net/


6:Super: Free Video converter. Convert and play many video file formats and convert files to multiple formats such as DVD, MPEG, Quicktime .MOV, AVI, DivX, PSP, iPod, etc. http://www.eRightSoft.com

7: PDF Xchange Viewer: Free PDF viewer/editor. Read, edit and create PDF files the easy way! Faster than Adobe Acrobat. http://www.docu-track.com/

8: Deep Burner: Free DVD burner software. Simple interface but fully featured. Create Data, Audio or ISO DVD's.Create and Print disc labels, booklets or DVD case inserts using a number of presets. More reliable than NERO. http://www.deepburner.com

9: Terregen: free (for personal use only) terrain generator. Creates photo-realistic landscapes and worlds. You can animate the sky, water and camera movements through created worlds and export to .BMP format. These .BMP's can be converted to image sequences using Blender or VirtualDub.Terregen 2 supports import of 3D models in Wavefront OBJ format. http://www.planetside.co.uk

10: Open Office: Free Open Source word processor, PDF creation, etc. More advanced than Microsoft Word/Works/Excel. http://www.openoffice.org

11: PDF Creator: Free PDF creation - as simple as that. Convert any file to PDF format. http://www.pdfcreator.de.vu/

12: 7Zip: Free file compression software. Open .Zip, .Rar , etc formats. Save to .7zip format whcih has advanced compression capabilities.
http://www.7zip.org


13: Voodoo Camera Tracker: Free (for non-commercial use) software for match-moving filmed footage. In human language this means that you can film something using a handheld camera, import the sequence into Voodooo (first you must convert your raw footage into Targa .TGA format stills using the Free VirtualDub program) and then the program will match the camera movements and form a cloud of vertex dots simulating the 3D re-constructed world scene. This data can be imported into Blender from which you can combine your real world footage with artificial 3D objects. You could pay $1000's for a similar commercial program - but why bother when Voodoo does a wonderful job for nothing!
http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de

14: Firefox: Free Open Source Web Browser. Better and safer than Internet Explorer - so much so that the latest version of IE copied Firefox's tabbed browsing. Less likely to catch a nasty virus using Firefox than it's commercial rivals. http://www.mozilla.com

15: Make Human: Free Open Source 3D human model creator. Similar to commercial program “Poser”. Essential for those who are no good at modelling! You can create a realistic human figure by simply moving sliders and pose it. Export the 3D model to Blender in Wavefront .OBJ or Collada format. Previous versions, I found, used a too complex mesh which wasn't particularily suitable for animation (too many vertices). But this latest build uses a lower density mesh while retaining accurately posable edge loops. http://www.daedalo3D.org

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Didn't quite make it....
There are many other great Free programs availbale for download jsut waiting to be discovered. I could not possibly list them all but here is just a sample of some:

Paint.Net: Free image editor/creator. Similar to The Gimp but more simplified and faster. www.getpaint.net/redirect/wp/index.html

Wax: free audio/Video editor/Compositor. Originally a plug-in for Sony Vegas but now can be used as a standalone editor. Lots of different filters and effects. I've found it to be a bit troublesome at times - especially at rendering. Try it and see what you think. The guy who designs it, Satish Kumar, has also created a number of other great free programs such as "Wink" and "WinMorph" featured below).
Go to http://www.debugmode.com and check out this program and more.

Wink: A Free presentation program that records screen capture and exports in Shockwave flash (SWF) and avi format files. http://www.debugmode.com

WinMorph: Free image morphing software. From the maker of Wax and Wink. http://www.debugmode.com

WinDV: Free video recording software for importing DV footage to computer. Fast and reliable. http://windv.mourek.cz/

VirtualDub: Free Video/Audio sequencer editor. Combine your audio and video and exprt to AVi format. Many filters and effects.Very Fast. Main use is for converting recorded to footage to .TGA format sequence for import to Voodoo Camera tracker. http://www.virtualdub.org

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Not Free but Great!

Getright: file download manager. Fully functioning Trial available (which does not expire). http://www.getright.com/

Deep Exploration: 3D Model convertor/viewer. Convert to/from multiple formats with many settings. View and Convert image/video/html/txt files too. Trial available at http://www.righthemisphere.com/dexp.htm. After 14 days the trial version disables save feature but still allows you to open and view all files.

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Free - but be very wary....

Jahshaka: Video/Audio editor and compositor. Free with a well designed interface but very buggy. Crashes an awful lot. Do not depend on this program to get the job done! http://jahshaka.org/

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And Finally for those in need of a complete Operating System to use instead of Windows...

Don't forget Ubuntu - the Open Source operating system! Go to the site and fill in the simple form and you will be posted a CD containing the operating system which you can install on your computer. And it's completely Free (don't even have to pay for psot and packing) ! www.ubuntu.com/

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Think of any software you think is worthy of appearing on the Dwarefd Films Essential list?
Leave a comment on the site

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils at Dwarfed Films.

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