Blender 2.63 Splashscreen

by - 2012/04/27 20 Comments Artwork

For the upcoming Blender release 2.63 the Mango team worked hard to produce a splashscreen. We tested various concepts, as well as different techniques. It was a good exercise to take the tests to the next level and produce a “final-ish” image, that would also look good in the movie.

Both scenes still heavily rely on Blender Internal, in particular for the volumetric effects. The main renders come right out of Cycles, but halos and smoke could only be achieved by linking the scene to Blender internal, in a new scene, with it’s own setup of render layers and passes. As you can imagine that makes everything a bit complicated, since you work with different scenes, juggling around layers, passes and baked smoke files. The interactive preview capabilities of Cycles have been of great help and the speed and quality of the engine is improving almost on a daily basis! We are very excited to work with such great tools.

Grab the latest release of Blender here: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Here are the node setups for both scenes:

  1. André says:

    Awesome work! Absolutely stunning. :) One of the best Splash-Screens Blender ever had!

  2. Tycho says:

    Waaa impressive : it partially answer my question from last post :) And for motion blur ? Already implemented in cycle ? Or got from internal ?
    Impressive work.

    • Tycho says:

      Yes I agree : we need theese two image as wallpaper. If time enough please make this at 1920*1080, without black border. I need a cool wallpaper and I prefer the Quadbot in context as sitting unlivingly on an unexpressive white infinite plan :)

  3. Khalid Elbedri says:

    Amazing. keep up!

  4. Diego Herrera says:

    You guys are going to release the blend files when mango’s completed right?

  5. Ridgerunner says:

    Hey guys, if you can find the time, could you render out a full HD version of the image with the volumetric effects? It would make a great background for my desktop! Like always Amazing work keep at it!

  6. Christoph Pöhler aka Dracio says:

    Very Cool
    and even the First one goz a big Impact
    did you unse Cycel (for shure)but how did you do the wonderfull Sun thrue the window effect?

    • blenderguy says:

      They are created using the “Halo” option in Blender Internal’s Spotlights and then combined with the image from Cycles.

      Quote from the post: “The main renders come right out of Cycles, but halos and smoke could only be achieved by linking the scene to Blender internal”

  7. Veiko says:

    Despite of this that it is pure artistic expression I feel my self being distracted by the fact that device which is assembled with such tiny screws simply can not fly through walls without major damages. :)

    • Caleb says:

      It’s conceivable that those are simply decorative screws and most of the actual heavy load is taken by internal fastening.

  8. vblend says:

    I really prefer the first one…
    One of the best splash, I agree…

  9. MxD says:

    Waw, I really like the Quadbot !!! “Smashbot” is very dramatic but also a little bit indecipherable (cluttered). “Splashbot” is the best ! An impressive beast, a nice composition, and beautifully illuminated ! Congrats !

  10. Charlie says:

    Awesome, but when do we get to see Mango Bot vs Sintel Dragon.?

  11. Den Frost says:

    Amazing.Splash screen. I love it.Thank you very much whole team for the new release 2.63

  12. 3pointedit says:

    Since the node tree has to be long and complicated why not re-arrange them to spell out Mango?! I wonder if there is a script for that ;-)

  13. TFS says:

    So what issue of 3Dworld/3Dartist is this badboy gonna feature in?

  14. Allef Durães says:

    Muito Bom mesmo! Gostei muito de Splashscreen!!!…

  15. Hey there,
    great work! But i got a question: How do you the image of your node setup in such high-resolution. Do you combine different screenshots together?

    Oliver