Buy a model and save a life *

Hi, Shane here.
Only recently I added some models I created onto a few sites for sale.
They are all architectural elements or buildings such as high rises and are available for download in a variety of formats including 3ds, Lwo, Obj, W3d and others. All the models were created using Blender 3D.
I hope to keep adding to these collections when I find the time but until then please visit the links below!

Checkout my TURBOSQUID page

Checkout my 3DSTUDIO page

Checkout my 3D02 page


*"Buy a model and save a life" is not technically true;)

KVR Audio

The best site I've found on the net for VST plugins is the KVR Database
The best thing is that you can find free plugins in all categories by using it's great search engine.
Just select the format you're looking for and choose the various options to narrow your search.
You can find VST instruments, hosts, DirectX, etc in commercail,shareware and freeware categories. Some of the freeware ones are very high quality and sound excellent.
This is is a very good site and we recommend it to anyone who hasn't discovered it yet.

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OFFICE HOURS: animation update

A Screenshot from Blender showing animation process during Office Hours production.

Click on the image to view it full size with notations.

To get in touch with Dwarfed Films click here or simply leave a comment on this site.

Essential Free Software List has been updated

The Dwarfed Films Essential Freeware List has been updated with some new programs and direct links to download sites.
Some websites that advertise freeware are fake and contain malware/spyware. The sites we've included are ones we've used ourselves.
We hope you find some useful programs and realise that just because something is free doesn't mean it's crap! The particular programs we've featured are the equal or better than their commercial rivals. Programs marked with "*" are ones we regularly use.

Click to go to Dwarfed Films Essential Freeware List

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Office Hours: "array modifier" example

Here is a screenshot from the modelling process of "Office Hours". The building was designed and modelled in Blender 3D. To save a great deal of time, sections of the building were duplicated using Blender's "Array modifier".

Click on the picture to view a larger image with brief descriptions and notes.

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Linux Ubuntu: check it out

I was just thinking of the software we used today and realised it was all freeware or open source.
They were Blender 3d, Audacity, VM midi Keyboard, Psycle, Firefox, Paint.net, The Gimp, Irfan View and Open Office. (click here for details/download info)
We really like the idea of freeware/open source software and one area we haven't really tried fully yet is open sorce operating systems. In the last post we mentioned Linux Ubuntu, and today we applied for a copy of this open source( Free) operating system.
Go check out their website. Ubuntu looks impressive and you can download it or apply to receive a free copy by mail if your connection is slow or you just like getting mail (they say it takes between 4 and 10 weeks to get it).
You can run windows applications on Ubuntu but there are thousands of freeware programs that are free to download and use too. Remember to check the Dwarfed Films Essential Freeware list.
I'm not sure how well windows designed programs work on Linux but you can go check out details on the web or check the ubuntu wiki.

Leave a comment or Contact Dwarfed Films

Windows Vista

We're using Windows Vista Premium which came pre-installed on a new computer. It looks nice although it's just really a fancier version of XP with the addition of a side bar with a clock, a calender and some other things. It all seems a bit gimmicky and is fun for a day or so but when you just want to focus on doing tasks such as audio/video editing you don't pass too many remarks of it. But it does run nicely.
I wouldn't have bought it as a standalone package but it is great when it comes pre-installed. The price of buying Vista Premium edition in Ireland is around 300 Euro or around 200 Euro for upgrade. I think that's too expensive considering that it isn't a massive improvement on the previous version of Windows. It is more user friendly and accessible but with some of the versions of Linux operating systems like Ubuntu that are coming out with excellent features, Microsoft should make more of an effort! I tested a bootable version of Linux last year (can't remember the name) and it looked great. Linux operating systems tend to allow programs like Blender 3d to run better too. Why didn't we switch to Linux if it's so great? Most of our software is windows based and we were unsure how stable it would work on Linux and we didn't want to waste time getting used to a new system either. We will switch over some day..
I haven't tried all our software with Vista yet but most of it seems to work ok. Blender was a bit glitchy: strange blockiness on the screen when moving windows or objects about. When settings in the optimisation panel were adjusted it worked as normal with major noticable errors except in render settings: when selecting a codec, the window that opens causes the blender screen immediatly beneath it to turn black when you try to drag it around.Of course this isn't a serious issue but it shouldn't happen. (You need to disable the AERO theme in Vista and it should work as normal)
Shit Talker (which appeared in a post from a few days ago) didn't work so good. It wouldn't shut down correctly and kept on running in the background and needed to be switched off from the task manager. Even then it wouldn't go away properly so Vista needed a reboot. I wouldn't recommend Shit Talker with Vista. Works fine with Windows 2000 but not on our Vista!
The drum sequencer program DT-100 Drumstation works with Vista but when attempting to save and enter a file name I was restricted to only certain keys and numbers like "a", "l" and the number "4". This was strange and annoying so I just removed the program in case it would cause any other problems.
I'll post any problems I notice with other audio/video editing programs when I come across them.

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SHIT TALKER

No, I'm not talking about myself! I'm instead talking about the voice synthesis software program Shit Talker. It basically speaks aloud whatever you type into it in a variety of voices. Ok, some of them sound "speak and spell" style robotic but some, like old woman, nerd and choir boy, are pretty good especially with a little bit of tweaking.
Shit Talker is aimed at making prank calls but if you get a little creative you can find lots of uses for it in music and filmmaking. If you want to record what is being said in Shit Talker you will need to record from your soundcard using something like Audacity (don't worry it's freeware too, and very good). And Shit Talker is free! Check out it's website and listen to some of the funny recordings done with Shit Talker.
Shit Talker: It does exactly what it says in it's title!

NB: Shit Talker (what a great name!) does not work well with Windows Vista. Also it sometimes will not speak after you have used another audio source (such as Audacity) to record from or after you have played a Wave/Mp3/Ogg format file on your computer. To get Shit Talker to speak again you must re-boot your computer. This is the crap side of the program.

Don't forget to check the Dwarfed Films essential freeware list

As usual leave a comment or email Dwarfed Films

Great Freeware website

I came across a really well laid and informative website.

It's called LIGHTLINKS and features literally hundreds of freeware utilities for music creation, animation, graphics applications, spyware removal and much more. Ignore the religious stuff on the page and focus your attention on the left hand side of the page where it says "3 angels Freeware" (don't ask...).Click on the categories to get taken to the relevent freeware goodies. There are lots of excellent ones to be found.

It seems to be run by some christian religious group but don't let that put you off as they don't appear to be forcing any opinions on web visitors - instead they bizarrely just seem to be promoting free stuff. Very strange!

Busy on new Album

We've been busy working on lots of music.
Are you curious?Well continue to read on...
We're in the process of putting together a number of tracks for an album of moody beat-based "ambient electronica".
Very catchy stuff that we can't get out of our heads and it all sounds damn good so far- if I do say so myself!
More details to follow and will posted on our music website under our bands name (which is not Dwarfed Films)

Yahoo Answers: good site

Now we're not big fans of Yahoo's search engine. It's way too cluttered and busy compared to good old dependable Google. But Yahoo Answers is a great site. Whatever question you have you're bound to find an answer for it there.

Click here to visit the site.

Office Hours: hair again

In early postings I showed particle hair images from the film. Animating particle hair can be a problem sometimes - it is unpredictable and can end up going through the body and other weird effects. I've been experimenting with polygon hair for the female character instead. Polygon hair
is easier to animate and faster to render.
The first two images show dark brown hair from the side and behind. From this distance it looks pretty realistic but up close it still would need a bit of work.
The third image shows a blonde hair style with basic flat lighting. Not bad - but maybe needs more work to stop it looking too "stiff" and static. When animated it moves really well and behaves far better than it's particle hair equivalent.
You can click on the images and view them better but these are only about a quarter the size of what the full rendered versions will be.

Contact Dwarfed Films with any comments/opinions

Office Hours: car model

This is a simple retro 3d car model designed for the movie Office Hours.

Contact DWARFED FILMS here

PC Utilities Magazine Issue#88

The Essential Freeware section on this website hopefully has been of some use to a few of you out there but we highly recommend a UK magazine called PC Utilities. It is a monthly magazine that comes with a DVD of freeware (plus some shareware/trialware) software for windows operating systems.
This months issue, #88, comes with a bumper 4gigs+ of software that will suit your needs for practically every task (well a lot of tasks at least!). It includes everything from Blender(2.43 version - although 2.44 is now out and available from blender.org), Firefox, security software (Ad Aware SE, and loads more), Foxit PDF Reader (better than acrobat reader) and literally hundreds more essential programs in all catagories. If you see it in your local newsagents I recommend picking up a copy and make sure that the DVD is included!

Go to the Dwarfed Films ESSENTIAL FREEWARE

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Office Hours: building design

Some images of a high rise building that will be used in Office Hours. I've been modelling quite a few buildings (with Blender, of course) recently, ranging from office buildings to small stores. Our computer is really struggling with the massive polygon counts!
We'll add more images shortly.

You can contact Dwarfed Films here

Lighting render comparison

The attached image shows a comparison of the same scene lit in two different ways.
The image on the left was rendered with a sky dome of hemisphere lights and an area light casting shadows only. The image on the right was rendered using a combination of a small sky dome and ambient occlusion.
The image on the left is better - despite faking global illumination. It also rendered much faster than the ambient occlusion render. The whole point goes to show that "cheating" during the rendering process is the way to go!
You can click on the images to view them full size and compare the important differences between them.

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Office Hours: street scene tests

Here are two brand new images from 3D animated short film Office Hours.
One of them is late evening still of a partially modelled street rendered using nothing but Ambient Occlusion. You can see that the models look more "solid" than previously which is mostly due to the fact that they don't look plastic anymore!
The other image is a daylight street scene test render. As you can see it's coming along nicely even when lit very basically. This scene features a small sky dome of hemi lights (with specular turned off), a single shadow lamp (only casts shadows) and Ambient Occlusion. It's too bright and there aren't enough areas of high contrast shading - plus the AO samples are much too low - but it is certainly beginning to "feel" like the kind of street we envisioned when writing the script (ie: Edward Hopper-esque; and if you don't know who Edward Hopper is then go here).

More images to follow.

Contact Dwarfed Films with any questions or comments.

Office Hours: ambient occlusion

Here are some images showing the power of Ambient Occlusion in Blender 3D.
In case you don't know, Ambient Occlusion is a global illumination feature that simulates realistic lighting in the 3D scene.
The top image shows the Ambient Occlusion settings used when rendering the attached stills. Click on it to view it full screen size.
the middel and bottom images show renders with and without Ambient Occlusion (AO). Both images were lit exactly the same with a single shadow-casting light but as you can see they look vastly different due to the effectiveness of the AO. Of course using AO results in much longer rendering times but it is well worth the extra effort and time.

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Office Hours: street scene models

Two new images from Office Hours which show some of the smaller buildings to be used in the street layout from the film. These buildings are have more of the gritty/run-down kind of look that we're after. The previous buildings didn't have much character but these have a more lived-in look.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

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Office Hours: smaller buildings

Work in progress image from Office Hours of some buildings. Until now the attention was on designing and modelling big office building locations but they wouldn't look "big" unless there were small builings located around them. The only way to create a realistic type street scene is by looking up lots of reference images. We don't want all the buildings to look too similar but we also don't want them too have radically different designs either.
By the way, those weird looking drainpipes in the picture are being replaced with some proper looking ones!

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DVD/CD burning software

What is it with burning software? I don't know how many times a DVD burn has failed or been unable to "write short lead out". It is so annoying!
I used to burn DVD video files with Magix. Trouble was it kept failing even when the program was reinstalled a few times.
Then I started to use Cyberlink DVD which worked alright for a bit (even though the DVD designs layouts were basic) until it too started acting up.
Well now I only use Ulead DVD Workshop for burning video DVD's and (so far) it hasn't let me down yet. And it's fast!
Now, burning a data CD/DVD used never be an issue. I was using Nero for that and it was pretty reliable. I'd put the occasional bad burn down to a faulty disk. But again recently Nero has been causing problems - bad file writes and sometimes even causing the computer to crash.
So the solution: a freeware program called Final Burner. It is only about 2mb in size, has a funtional layout and most importantly is very reliable. Here is the what the makers say

FinalBurner is a freeware alternative to expensive CD and DVD burners.
Its users will benefit from the opportunity to create data, audio,
and video disks and burn them onto any type of media, such as CD R/RW,
DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD DL. No tedious or confusing configuration needed.
You just select a few main settings and start burning. FinalBurner's
artificial intelligence will find the perfect recording balance.

Final Burner can rip from CD's, burn DVD video and data CD/DVD just like it's expensive commercial rivals. The protected soft website offer other programs and some of them are commercial or "pro" editions with extra features but do yourself a favour and just go for the freeware versions. (Note: Final Burner Free is for personnal use only).

Download Final Burner here.